Written with Amy Rosenfeld, Ph.D. Zika virus has been infecting humans since at least the 1950s (and probably earlier), but epidemics of infection have only been observed in the past ten years and congenital Zika syndrome in the last two. Two hypotheses emerged to explain this new pattern of disease: ...

Theodora Hatziioannou joins the TWiV team to discuss a macaque model for AIDS, and how a cell protein that blocks HIV-1 infection interacts with double-stranded RNA. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 465 (53 MB .mp3, 88 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv

What would happen to an RNA virus if its genome were placed in a bad neighborhood? The answer is that fitness plummets. RNA virus populations are not composed of a single defined nucleic acid sequence, but are dynamic distributions of many nonidentical but related members. In the past I have referred ...

https://youtu.be/OAIOV2qQU8g At Tufts University Dental School in Boston, Vincent speaks with Katya Heldwein and Sean Whelan about their careers and their work on herpesvirus structure and replication of vesicular stomatitis virus. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 464 (53 MB .mp3, 88 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv

We have previously discussed the idea that viruses originated from selfish genetic elements such as plasmids and transposons when these nucleic acids acquired structural proteins (see A plasmid on the road to becoming a virus). I want to explore in more detail the idea that the structural proteins of  viruses likely originated ...