In this mid-week episode of Earth’s Virology Podcast, we analyze SARS-CoV-2 transmission among youths at a summer camp, adaptation to mice by passage, the importance of T cells for recovery from COVID-19, and listener questions. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 650 (73 MB .mp3, 122 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Daniel Griffin provides a clinical update on COVID-19, then Ralph Baric joins TWiV to discuss SARS-CoV-2 transmission, vaccines, diagnostic tests, and a new animal model from his laboratory that does not use transgenic mice. Click arrow to playDownload TWiV 626 (98 MB .mp3, 163 min)Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Small animal models (mice, ferrets, hamsters) are essential for understanding how SARS-CoV-2 causes disease and for pre-clinical evaluation of vaccines and antiviral therapeutics. One promising model has been developed by modifying SARS-CoV-2 so that it binds to murine ACE2. Laboratory mice cannot be infected with SARS-CoV-2 because the viral spike glycoprotein (illustrated) does not bind …
The TWiVologists consider whether to receive an influenza vaccine in August (in the northern hemisphere), and mice implanted with human lung fragments for studying microbial pathogens. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 563 (55 MB .mp3, 91 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Mice are important animal models for studying human pathogens, but they have limitations: not all human viruses replicate in mice and often these animals do not reproduce aspects of disease and immune responses. Mice implanted with human bone marrow, liver, and thymus (BLT mice) develop human immune systems, but most pathogens infect other cell types. …
The TWiV team discusses Medusavirus, isolated from a hot spring in Japan, and induction of neurodegeneration by recurrent herpes simplex virus 1 infection of mice. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 543 (65 MB .mp3, 108 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
