Influenza researcher Peter Palese visited yesterday and spoke about “Pandemic influenza: Past and Future”. A key part of his talk was a review of his efforts to produce a universal influenza vaccine which protects against all strains. He used the following graph to make the point that when influenza pandemic strains emerge, there is insufficient …
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit On episode #110 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Dickson discuss bacteria that can utilize arsenic in place of phosphorus, the passing of Frank Fenner, polio outbreak in The Congo, solving criminal cases of HIV transmission, and classifying viruses by capsid structure. …
A salt-loving (halophilic) bacterium which can grow in medium containing arsenic instead of phosphorus has been selected from the microbial community of Mono Lake in California. Arsenic (As) is a chemical analog of phosphorus and is usually toxic because it can enter metabolic pathways in the place of phosphorus. It appears to be incorporated into macromolecules of …
Are there viruses of arsenic-utilizing bacteria? Read More »
I joined Marc Pelletier, Andre Nantel, and George Farr on episode 71 of Futures in Biotech for a conversation about the 1000 genome project, the billion dollar human proteome, how antibodies block viral infection, and capturing anti-matter. [audio:http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/twit.cachefly.net/fib0071.mp3 | titles=FiB 71] Download audio FiB #71 (42 MB .mp3, 87 minutes) Download video (211 MB .mp4)
Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rosa Maria del Angel, and Ana Lorena Gutierrez On episode #109 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent visits Mexico City and speaks with Rosa Maria del Angel and Ana Lorena Gutierrez about virology in Mexico, and their work on dengue and caliciviruses. [powerpress url=”http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV109.mp3″] Click the arrow above to play, or …
Australian virologist Frank Fenner, MD was born in Ballarat, Victoria in 1914. He earned a Doctor of Medicine in 1942 at the University of Adelaide, and from 1940 – 1946 he worked on the malaria parasite in Egypt and Papua New Guinea as an officer in the Australian Army Medical Corps. He subsequently began studying the …
