A battle is brewing between two research groups in Marseille, France that are involved in the discovery and study of giant viruses. Didier Raoul and colleagues believe that they have discovered a CRISPR-like, DNA based defense system in mimivirus that confers resistance to virophage (paper link). Claverie and Abergel disagree: ...

Vincent, Rich and Kathy speak with Stephen Russell about his career and his work on oncolytic virotherapy €“ using viruses to treat cancers. Recorded before an audience at ASV 2016 at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia. You can find TWiV #395 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen/view below. [powerpress url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV395.mp3"] Click arrow to play Download TWiV 395 (44 MB .mp3, 60 min) ...

Vincent and Alan speak with Erica Ollmann Saphire about her career and her work on understanding the functions of proteins of Ebolaviruses, Marburg virus, and other hemorrhagic fever viruses, at ASM Microbe 2016 in Boston, MA. You can find TWiV #394 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen or watch the video below. ...

When we decided to work on Zika virus in February 2016, experiments in mice were certainly part of our plans. However, one does not simply walk into a mouse facility and start inoculating animals with viruses! Carrying out animal experiments requires approval of a detailed protocol by the Institutional Animal Care and ...

In this new video from Virus Watch, I tackle the thorny question of whether viruses are alive. Plenty of people have offered their opinon on this question. The results of a poll I've had here on virology blog shows that people are divided on the answer. But I'm sure I ...