Last week the US Food and Drug Administration approved a rapid test for determining whether a person is infected with an H5N1 subtype of influenza virus. Why is it better than previously available influenza diagnostic assays? The format of the new assay, according to its developer, ArborVita, “is the familiar lateral-flow rapid antigen assay”. This …
None of the four human polymaviruses that were known in early 2008 – JC, BK, KI and WU – had been shown to cause cancer. The subsequent identification of a new polyomavirus associated with Merkel cell carcinoma demonstrates the type of evidence that is required to prove that a virus is oncogenic in humans. Merkel …
Merkel cell polyomavirus, a new oncogenic human virus? Read More »
On episode #27 of the podcast “This Week in Virology”, Vincent, Dick, Alan, and Saul Silverstein revisit an ebolavirus needlestick accident, and discuss the role of TLR3 in formation of Negri bodies, a New England college closed by norovirus gastroenteritis, hand, foot, and mouth disease outbreak in China, and the exit of herpes simplex virus …
Many of us have experienced herpesvirus reactivation from latency. Suddenly a sore erupts on the lip, festers for a week, then subsides. Years later, for no apparent reason, it happens again. Did you ever wonder what causes these recurrent blisters? Herpes simplex viruses are associated with latent infections, a type of persistent viral infection that …
An outbreak of hand, foot, and mouth disease in China has lead to 41,000 infections and 18 deaths this year. What is this disease and what causes it? Hand, foot, and mouth disease (HFMD) is a rather common viral infection of children. There were 80,000 recorded cases of the disease just in China for 2007. …
I joined host Dr. Marc Pelletier on the TWiT podcast ‘Futures in Biotech’ to interview influenza virologist Dr. Peter Palese, professor and chair of microbiology at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. We talk about influenza and why Dr. Palese revived a virus that killed 50 million people. Download Futures in Biotech 40: Virus Reborn …
