In episode #22 of This Week in Virology, Vincent and Chris Upton converse about hepatitis B in India, AIDS gene therapy with a ribozyme, antibodies that neutralize many influenza virus strains, killing tumors with vaccinia virus, myxoma virus of rabbits, and the Viral Bioinformatics Resource Center. Click the arrow above ...

When Harald zur Hausen identified the first human papillomavirus (HPV-16) in 1983 in women with cervical cancer, little did he know he would receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine for this discovery 25 years later. He probably also did not know how difficult it would be to propagate these viruses in ...

The World Health Organization's global polio eradication effort uses the live, attenuated poliovirus vaccines developed by Albert Sabin. When the eradication program was announced in 1988, the goal was to eliminate global poliomyelitis, then cease immunization with poliovirus at some point in the future. In 2002 an outbreak of polio ...

The best way to prevent influenza is by immunization. Unlike vaccines for polio and measles, which confer life-long immunity, the influenza vaccine protects for only one year. Influenza virus undergoes antigenic variation, necessitating annual production of a new vaccine. Is it possible to formulate an influenza vaccine that protects against all virus ...

The treatment of AIDS patients with a combination of three or four antiviral drugs is known as HAART, or highly active antiretroviral therapy. Combination therapy has been effective for long-term control of infection, and represents one of the high points in AIDS research. The downside of HAART is that strict ...