A listener of the science podcast This Week in Virology asked in 2010 whether there are viruses that infect mitochondria: Is there a virus that infects mitochondria? It€™s an organelle that has its own genetic material and polymerase, so it could replicate a virus. Does the mitochondrial double membrane and ...

The TWiVstars reveal the diversity of herpes simplex virus type 2 in a neonatal population, and parallel adaptation of rabbits in three countries to myxoma virus. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 540 (66 MB .mp3, 109 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV!

When viruses are introduced into a new population, selection pressures can lead to evolution of both pathogen and host. The pathogen must adapt to a new host, while the latter can become resistant to infection, leading to an arms race. An archetypal example of such host-pathogen evolution is illustrated by ...

The TWiV hosts present two potentially seminal papers, on long-distance chemoattraction of a host by a chlorovirus, and replication of a nanovirus across multiple cells in a plant. Click arrow to play Download TWiV 539 (62 MB .mp3, 102 min) Subscribe (free): iTunes, Google Podcasts, RSS, email Become a patron of TWiV! Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv

by Gertrud U. Rey Timothy Ray Brown, also known as the Berlin patient (reviewed in a previous post), was the only person ever to be cured of HIV/AIDS. Until last week. In a report published in the journal Nature, a group of investigators announced the cure of a second HIV-positive patient ...