Do you remember the retrovirus XMRV, initially implicated as the cause of chronic fatigue syndrome, and later shown to be a murine virus that contaminated human cells grown in mice? Another virus thought to be associated with human disease has recently been shown to be a contaminant, derived from a piece of laboratory plasticware that …
De-discovering pathogens: Viral contamination strikes again Read More »
On episode #250 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent and Robert Garcea talked about polyomaviruses. This episode was recorded at the 53rd ICAAC in Denver, Colorado. You can find TWiV #250 at www.microbe.tv/twiv, or view the video below.
When you purchase chicken eggs at the market, they usually have white or brown shells. But some breeds of chicken produce blue or green eggs. The blue color is caused by insertion of a retrovirus into the chicken genome, which activates a gene involved in the production of blue eggs. The Araucana, a chicken breed …
On episode #249 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Dickson, Alan and Rich discuss an estimate of the number of different mammalian viruses on Earth. You can find TWiV #249 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
How many different viruses are there on planet Earth? Twenty years ago Stephen Morse suggested that there were about one million viruses of vertebrates (he arrived at this calculation by assuming ~20 different viruses in each of the 50,000 vertebrates on the planet). The results of a new study suggest that at least 320,000 different …
Dr. Jeffrey Almond began his career as an academic virologist studying influenza virus, then moved to poliovirus. He made major contributions to our understanding of the molecular basis of poliovirus attenuation and reversion to virulence. After 20 years in academics he moved to Sanofi Pasteur, where he is currently Vice President, discovery research and external …
