An immunodeficient individual has been excreting poliovirus in his stool for 28 years. Such chronic excreters pose a threat to the poliovirus eradication program. Since its inception in 1988 by the World Health Organization, the poliovirus eradication program has relied on the use of the infectious, attenuated vaccine strains produced by Albert Sabin. These viruses …
I have a soft spot in my heart for Lassa virus: a non-fictional account of its discovery in Africa in 1969 inspired me to become a virologist. Hence papers on this virus always catch my attention, such as one describing its origin and evolution. Lassa virus, a member of the Arenavirus family, is very different from Ebolavirus (a filovirus), but …
In midsummer 1986, five years after starting my poliovirus laboratory at Columbia University, I received a letter from Frederick L. Schaffer, a virologist at the University of California, Berkeley, asking if I would like to have his collection of poliovirus stocks. He was retiring and the samples needed a home, otherwise they would be destroyed. …
An Ebolavirus vaccine has shown promising results in a clinical trial in Guinea. This vaccine has been in development since 2004 and was made possible by advances in basic virology of the past 40 years. The ability to produce the Ebolavirus vaccine, called rVSV-EBOV, originates in the 1970s with the discovery of the enzyme reverse transcriptase, the development of …
A permissive vaccine prevents disease in the immunized host, but does not block virus infection. Would a permissive vaccine lead to the emergence of more virulent viruses? This hypothesis is based on the notion that viruses which kill their hosts too quickly are not efficiently transmitted, and are therefore removed by selection. However a vaccine …
I am pleased to announce the publication by ASM Press of the fourth edition of our virology textbook, Principles of Virology. Two years in the making, this new edition is fully updated to represent the rapidly changing field of virology. Principles of Virology has been written according to the authors’ philosophy that the best approach to teaching introductory …
