Johns Hopkins Neurovirologist Richard T. Johnson has died, and his obituary at Hub provides a good summary of his career. He had an important influence on my work early in my career. The first edition of Dr. Johnson’s book, Viral Infections of the Nervous System, was published in 1982 – the year I began my laboratory …
On episode #365 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, and Kathy trace the feud over genome editing, a new virus discovered in human blood, and the origins of hepatitis A virus. You can find TWiV #365 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
On episode #364 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Rich, and Kathy speak with Ralph Baric and Vineet Menachery about their research on the potential of SARS-like bat coronaviruses to infect human cells and cause disease in mice. You can find TWiV #364 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
There is an article on Dengue in the NY Times this week. It’s short on science, but brings home the impact of the disease (which is rare in the US and Europe) in developing countries. The article focuses on the disease in Bangkok, where the United States Army maintains its largest overseas research laboratory. The …
Since Monday I have been in Sitges, Spain for Europic 2008. This is a scientific meeting on picornaviruses held every other year in a European country. The picornaviruses are a family of non-enveloped, positive-strand RNA viruses, and includes poliovirus, rhinovirus, and foot-and-mouth disease virus. I have been attending Europic meetings since 1983, when it was …
According to ProMED mail, Chikungunya is rapidly spreading in Sri Lanka. Chikungunya virus is a togavirus in the alphavirus genus. The infection is spread by mosquitos, mainly Aedes aegypti. The viral disease has been known for more than 50 years in the tropics and savannahs of developing countries of Asia and Africa, but never has …
