by Gertrud Rey Although cancer therapies have improved dramatically in recent years, the main options for treating cancer still consist of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy. This limitation is a problem for aggressive cancers like glioblastoma multiforme (GBM), brain cancers which are typically resistant to traditional therapies.
When I first entered the field of virology, in the 1970s, the definition of virus included the then-correct observation that no viral genome encoded any part of the translational apparatus. This dictum was shattered by the discovery of giant viruses which were found to encode tRNAs, aminoacyl tRNA syntheses, and many proteins involved in translation. …
Virus particles are metastable: they must be highly stable, to protect the nucleic acid while traveling from host to host or cell to cell, and then come apart to liberate the genome into the cell. New insight into this uncoating process comes from beautiful images of feline calicivirus showing formation of a portal on the …
The gut tracts of many animals are inhabited by a microbial community composed of bacteria, archaea, fungi, and viruses. The interplay among these inhabitants can have an impact on health and disease. Mosquitoes are no exception – replication of dengue virus in the gut tract is modulated by a fungus and a bacterium.
The family of viruses known as the Filoviridae (filo, from the Latin for thread) is well known for the ebolaviruses, which cause the hemorrhagic disease that regularly erupts in Africa. As Earth€™s virome is slowly revealed, other filoviruses are discovered.
Measles virus does not just cause a rash – it can kill, up to 100,000 people each year. And there are many related viruses circulating in other animals that are not far from being able to infect human cells.
