Virophage is the name coined for viruses such as Sputnik and Mavirus that can only replicate in cells infected with a helper virus, whose replication they inhibit. I’ve never liked the name – it means virus eater – and neither does Brent Johnson, a virologist at Brigham Young University: “I believe the term ‘virophage’ is unfortunate …
Last week I attended the 30th annual meeting of the American Society for Virology in Minneapolis, Minnesota. During the morning symposia, which consist of formal 35-minute talks, I decided to post ongoing summaries of each talk on Twitter, a process known as ‘live tweeting’ or ‘live blogging’. Some individuals were skeptical about this activity, because …
After a listener made the Omega tau podcast his pick of the week on TWiV129, I sent a note to the show’s author, Marcus Völter. He responded by inviting me on his program. I brought Dickson Despommier with me and we recorded a wide-ranging conversation on viruses, bacteria, and parasites. It is very basic, so if …
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Contagion is the name of a new action-thriller movie about a global outbreak of a deadly viral disease. The trailer is now available. From the website: Synopsis “Contagion” follows the rapid progress of a lethal airborne virus that kills within days. As the fast-moving epidemic grows, the worldwide medical community races to find a cure …
Yesterday I terminated the last remaining mice in my small colony, including the line of poliovirus receptor transgenic mice that we established here in 1990. Remarkably, I had never written about this animal model for poliomyelitis which has played an important role in the work done in my laboratory. While I was still working on …
Analysis of poliovirus recovered from the stool of a patient with fatal poliomyelitis revealed that she had been infected with the virus 12 years earlier, probably when one of her children received the oral poliovirus vaccine. This case has the longest known incubation period for vaccine-derived poliomyelitis, and highlights our still rudimentary understanding of how …
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