I spoke with virologist Ian Goodfellow, whose laboratory works on noroviruses, about why he went to Sierra Leone to establish an Ebolavirus diagnostic and sequencing laboratory. The obstacles he encountered were considerable, but the results were very useful. Recorded at the Emerging Infectious Diseases A to Z (EIDA2Z) conference hosted by the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL).
A sensitive and specific blood test has been developed that could be used to limit the risk of transmission of prion disease through the blood supply (link to papers one and two). Prion diseases, also known as spongiform encephalopathies, are uniformly fatal, chronic degenerative neurological diseases caused by misfolding of a cellular protein, PrPC. Transmissible …
Virus infections initiate when virions bind to receptors on the cell surface. It is well known that cells can be made susceptible to infection by providing DNA encoding the virus receptor. For example, mice cannot be infected with poliovirus, but become susceptible if they are given the human poliovirus receptor gene. Now we have learned that providing the receptor protein …
Giving your neighbor the gift of virus susceptibility Read More »
Vincent Racaniello interviews Harmit Malik, PhD, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. Harmit and his laboratory are interested in a variety of problems that are characterized by evolutionary conflict. This video is one of 26 video interviews with eminent virologists that are part of the supplemental material for Principles of Virology, 4th Edition, published by ASM Press. …
A new breed of vaccines is on the horizon: they replicate in one type of cell, allowing for their production, but will not replicate in humans. Two different examples have recently been described for influenza and chikungunya viruses. The influenza virus vaccine is produced by introducing multiple amber (UAG) translation stop codons in multiple viral genes. …
Virophages (the name means virus eater) were first discovered to replicate only in amoeba infected with the giant mimiviruses or mamaviruses. They reduce yields of the giant viruses, and also decrease killing of the host cell. Another virophage called mavirus has been found to integrate into the genome of its host and behaves like an inducible antiviral defense system …
