Although Avery, MacLeod, and McCarty showed in 1944 that nucleic acid was both necessary and sufficient for the transfer of bacterial genetic traits, protein was still suspected to be a critical component of viral heredity. Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase showed that this hypothesis was incorrect with a simple experiment ...

On episode #198 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy review fatal avian influenza virus in harbor seals, and poxvirus deployment of genomic accordions to counter antiviral defenses. There once was a virus named pox Whose genome contained a squeeze-box When placed under pressure It ...

Last week I was at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory to attend a ceremony designating the well-known laboratory on Long Island as a Milestones in Microbiology site. The purpose of this program, which is administered by the American Society for Microbiology, is to recognize institutions that have substantially advanced the science ...

On episode #197 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent travels to the University of Connecticut to meet up with Professor Philip I. Marcus to discuss his development of the single cell cloning technique in the early 1950s. You can find TWiV #197 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.

When I am asked to name the most lethal human virus, I never hesitate to name rabies virus. Infection with this virus is almost invariably fatal; just three unvaccinated individuals have been known to survive. New evidence from humans in the Peruvian Amazon suggests that the virus might be less ...