At the recent Brazilian Virology Society meeting George Rohrmann gave me a copy of his book, Baculovirus Molecular Biology. Baculoviruses are double-stranded DNA containing viruses that infect insects and other arthropods. Early in the first chapter of George’s book I learned that baculoviruses may be present on uncooked cabbage leaves: …in one study it was found …
I hear from many readers that they routinely get the flu vaccine every year, yet they often contract the disease. I usually tell them that the vaccine is not perfect: it doesn’t protect everyone who gets it. Now we have the numbers to back up this statement, and they are not pretty. There have been …
Thanks to TWiV listener Janet for transcribing episode #154, ‘Symbiotic safecrackers’. A pdf file of the transcript can be found on the post for that episode. A list of the episode transcripts is also available. TWiV transcripts are all listener-generated, for which we are extremely grateful. If you would like to transcribe an episode, please …
I was honored to present the Keynote Address at the XXII meeting of the Brazilian Virology Society on 23 October 2011. In my talk entitled The World of Viruses, given to an audience of 640 virologists, I shared my enthusiasm for these amazing microbes by discussing ten seminal virologists and ten compelling virology stories of …
The Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working Group was formed to design and carry out a study to determine whether xenotropic murine leukemia virus-related virus (XMRV) posed a threat to blood safety. Phase III results were published on Sept. 22, 2011 in Science. In an upcoming webinar study leaders Graham Simmons and Mike Busch will present …
Results of the Blood XMRV Scientific Research Working Group Read More »
There is an excellent question in the comments to “Are all virus particles infectious?“: if the particle-to-PFU ratio for a virus stock is 10,000:1, and I infect 1,000,000 cells with 10,000 particles, how many plaques would I expect to observe? Answering this question provides insight into the particle-to-PFU ratio of viruses. If we take 10,000 particles …
