Virology
TWiM 41: ICAAC live in San Francisco
By Vincent Racaniello
On episode #41 of the science show This Week in Microbiology, Vincent and Michael travel to San Francisco for the 52nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), where they meet with Bill, John, and Victor to discuss tuberculosis, monitoring infectious disease outbreaks with online data, and outside-the-box approaches to ...
The Hershey-Chase food blender
By Vincent Racaniello
Should you ever visit Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory on Long Island, New York, be sure to go see the food blender that was used to carry out the well known Hershey-Chase experiment. The blender is located in the Szybalski Reading Room of the Carnegie Library. After entering the front door of ...
From a food blender to real-time fluorescent imaging
By Vincent Racaniello
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 ...
TWiV 198: Pox has got a squeeze-box, seals are gonna sneeze all night
By Vincent Racaniello
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 ...
Milestones in Microbiology at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
By Vincent Racaniello
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 ...
