Tamiflu (Oseltamivir) is one of the few antiviral drugs available for treatment of influenza. Use of the drug has increased substantially because of the emergence of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic strain, against which no vaccine is yet available. A recent study has shown that low levels of oseltamivir can be ...

The plaque assay is an essential tool for determining virus titers. The concept is simple: virus infection is restricted to neighboring cells by a semisolid overlay. By counting the number of plaques, the virus titer can be calculated in PFU per ml. A key question is: how many viruses are ...

One of the most important procedures in virology is measuring the virus titer - the concentration of viruses in a sample. A widely used approach for determining the quantity of infectious virus is the plaque assay. This technique was first developed to calculate the titers of bacteriophage stocks. Renato Dulbecco ...

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dick Despommier On episode #39 of the podcast "This Week in Virology", Vincent and Dick discuss virus structure and answer listener questions. [powerpress url="http://traffic.libsyn.com/twiv/TWiV039.mp3"] Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #39 (37 MB .mp3, 53 minutes) Subscribe to TWiV in iTunes, by ...

The immune response to viral infection comprises innate and adaptive defenses. The innate response, which we have discussed previously, functions continuously in a normal host without exposure to any virus. Most viral infections are controlled by the innate immune system. However, if viral replication outpaces innate defenses, the adaptive response ...