Many years ago a claim was made that cells infected with respiratory syncytial virus contained infectious DNA copies of the viral genome. When this paper was published, retroviral reverse transcriptase had been discovered, which explained how DNA copies of retroviral RNA genomes were made in infected cells. Although the respiratory syncytial viral genome is RNA, it does …
Unexpected viral DNA in RNA virus-infected cells Read More »
Back in 1974, before it was possible to determine the sequence of a viral genome, before we knew much about the origin of viruses and their ability to move genes from organism to organism, Lewis Thomas wrote the following incredibly prescient words in The Lives of a Cell: The viruses, instead of being single-minded agents of disease …
The Federal Drug Administration of the US approves new drugs solely on the basis of safety and effectiveness, with no value assessment. Pharmaceutical companies may set their drug prices based mainly on what the market will bear. Nevertheless, the announcement that Gilead Sciences would price their just-approved, anti-hepatitis C virus (HCV) drug sofosbuvir (Solvaldi) at $84,000 for 12 weeks …
Evolution proceeds by selection of mutants that arise by error-prone duplication of nucleic acid genomes. It is believed that mutations that are selected in a gene are dependent on those that have preceded them, an effect known as epistasis. Analysis of a sequence of changes in the influenza virus nucleoprotein provides clear evidence that stability …
A WORD on the constraints of influenza virus evolution Read More »
Ian Lipkin, Columbia University, New York, and Lyle Petersen, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado, discuss recently emerged pathogens, and how to prepare should their range expand. When asked if MERS-coronavirus would cause the next pandemic, Ian Lipkin responded ‘I don’t have a crystal ball’. Recorded at the Annual Meeting of the American Society …
This article was written for extra credit by a student in my recently concluded virology course. by Nayan Lamba A recent study by scientists at the Ludwig Center for Cancer Immunotherapy offers a new, multifaceted therapy for destroying tumors. A team of researchers led by Dmitriy Zamarin combined checkpoint blockade, a technique aimed at enhancing antitumor …
