An outbreak of Ebola hemorrhagic fever that began in early July 2012 has involved at least 36 individuals and 16 deaths. So far the disease has been confined to a rural region west of Kampala, the capital of Uganda. The subject of Richard Preston’s scary The Hot Zone, Ebolavirus is newsworthy because it can be highly …
Viral genomes are unusual because they can be based on RNA or DNA, in contrast to all cellular life forms, which have DNA as their genetic information. An unusual new virus has been discovered that appears to have sequences from both an RNA and a DNA virus. The new virus was identified during a study …
The second of two papers on avian influenza H5N1 virus that caused such a furor in the past year was published today in the journal Science. I have carefully read the paper by Fouchier and colleagues, and I assure you that it does not enable the production of a deadly biological weapon. The results describe …
Aaron J. Shatkin was well known for his work on reoviruses beginning in the 1960s in his laboratory at the Roche Institute of Molecular Biology in Nutley, NJ and then at Rutgers University. He was among the first to appreciate that virus particles contained many different enzymes, such as RNA polymerase and poly(A) polymerase, that could …
On TWiV #186, in response to a request to talk about Schmallenberg virus, we directed the listener to our discussion of this new virus with Richard Elliott on TWiV #177 – Live in Dublin. At the same meeting (Society for General Microbiology Spring Conference 2012) Richard also gave a separate presentation on Schmallenberg virus, which …
One of two papers on avian influenza H5N1 virus that caused such a furor in the past six months was published today in the journal Nature. I have read it, and I can assure you that the results do not enable the construction of a deadly biological weapon. Instead, they illuminate important requirements for the …
Kawaoka paper published on aerosol transmission of H5 influenza virus in ferrets Read More »
