Earlier this month the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) published the DNA sequence of the genome of HeLa cells, the cell line that is widely used for research in virology, cell biology, and many other areas. This cell line was produced from a tumor taken from Henrietta Lacks in 1951. Unfortunately the EMBL did not …
Henrietta Lacks (HeLa) genome sequence published then withdrawn Read More »
One of five vials of Guanarito virus is missing from the Galveston National Laboratory, which houses a BSL-4 laboratory designed to safely study the most dangerous pathogens. Guanarito virus is a member of the family Arenaviridae, which includes enveloped viruses with a segmented, negative-strand RNA genome. It is found in Venezuela where it is transmitted to …
Hemorrhagic fever virus missing from BSL-4 laboratory Read More »
MicrobeWorld and the Society for General Microbiology (UK) to live stream two events from their Spring Conference 2013 in Manchester, England, March 25-28. Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education Monday, March 25, 2013 17:20 GMT (1:20 PM EST | 10:20 AM PST) David Bhella, Ph.D., will be accepting the Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education, awarded …
Live from the Society for General Microbiology Conference in Manchester, UK Read More »
The theme of a recent New Media in Education Conference held at Columbia University was how digital media has reshaped the traditional academic publishing paradigm. I participated in a session entitled ‘New media publishing: Whither the textbook?‘ in which four panelists spoke about their experiences in this area. I spoke about how I use podcasting, …
Recently thousands of dead and decaying pigs were pulled from rivers in Shanghai and Jiaxing, China. Apparently farmers dumped the animals into the water after the pigs became ill. Porcine circovirus has been detected in the in pig carcasses and in the water. Porcine circoviruses are small, icosahedral viruses that were discovered in 1974 as …
Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites, which means that they must enter a cell to reproduce. As virions are too large to diffuse passively across the plasma membrane, cellular pathways for uptake of extracellular materials provide entry routes. The first step in entry is adherence of virus particles to the membrane, an interaction mediated by binding …
