The complement system is a collection of blood and cell surface proteins that is a major primary defense and a clearance component of innate and adaptive immune responses. At least 30 different complement proteins act sequentially to produce a wide ranges of activities, from cell lysis to augmentation of the ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dick Despommier, and Alan Dove On episode #52 of the podcast "This Week in Virology", Vincent, Dick, and Alan (with a cameo appearance by Rich Condit) review the world's largest Phase III study of a complex HIV vaccine candidate in Thailand, immunization of salmon against infectious salmon ...

Influenza A viruses tend to garner most of the attention, but let's not forget that there are two other virus types, B and C. The enveloped influenza A virions have three membrane proteins (HA, NA, M2), a matrix protein (M1) just below the lipid bilayer, a ribonucleoprotein core (consisting of ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Jason Rodriguez On episode #50 of the podcast "This Week in Virology", Vincent and Jason review influenza 2009 H1N1 vaccine trials and protection against the virus conferred by the 1976 swine flu vaccine, then move on to a virus called XMRV and its possible role in ...

During a discussion about blogging on the Coast to Coast Bio Podcast, it was suggested that science professors should spend more time writing about their research - by explaining what problems they are trying to solve, how they approach them, and why they are interesting. My goal here at virology ...