The illustration at left depicts a virion - the infectious particle that is designed for transmission of the nucleic acid genome among hosts or host cells. A virion is not the same as a virus. I define virus as a distinct biological entity with five different characteristics. Others believe that ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Welkin Johnson On episode #91 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent, Dickson, Alan, Rich and Welkin discuss the nature, origin, and evolution of endogenous retroviruses (ERVs), and the recent finding of endogenous filovirus genomes in mammals. [powerpress url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV091.mp3"] Click ...

A more rapid method than Western blot analysis to detect a specific protein in a cell, tissue, organ, or body fluid is enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay, or ELISA. This method, which does not require fractionation of the sample by gel electrophoresisis, is based on the property of proteins to readily bind ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier On episode 13 of the podcast This Week in Parasitism, Vincent and Dickson continue their discussion of the obligate intracellular protozoan Toxoplasma gondii with a consideration of the clinical consequences of infection and pathogenesis. [powerpress url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/twip/TWiP013.mp3"] Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to ...

Global fish farming may be the solution to the impending collapse of the commercial fishing industry, but penned fish are susceptible to infectious diseases. Infection with salmon infectious anemia virus, an orthomyxovirus, lead Wal-Mart to stop buying farmed salmon from Chile, the world's second largest producer of the fish. As a ...