MicrobeWorld

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit... Read More

The second of two papers on avian influenza H5N1 virus that caused such a furor in the past year was published today in the journal Science. I have carefully read the paper by Fouchier and colleagues, and I assure you that it does not enable the production of a deadly biological weapon. The resu... Read More

India has been free of polio for over one year. This is a remarkable accomplishment, considering that just 30 years ago the country recorded 200,000 cases of the disease annually, or one every three minutes. With polio endemic in two neighboring countries, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and in the mo... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Rich Condit... Read More

Atila writes:

Dear TWiVers,

I have heard recently that some types of herpes virus may protect us from bacterial infections. This made me remember of myxomavirus, viral oncotherapy and how tumor cells have a compromised immune response. Do you think it is possi... Read More

New York Times article by David Tuller, a journalism professor at Berkeley, on chronic fatigue syndrome and the retrovirus XMRV. The main focus of the article are four papers published in the journal Retrovirology at the end of 2010 which pointed to contamination as a potential issue for those a... Read More

What if a new planet was discovered... Read More

Vincent and Dickson move on to protozoan parasites with a discussion of the early history of malaria.

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Vincent and Dickson continue their discussion of malaria, with emphasis on clinical aspects of the disease.

Host links: Vincent Racanie... Read More

On episode #81 of the podcast This Week in Virology, Vincent and Rich answer listener questions on viruses and gluten allergy, RNA silencing, influenza virus, herpes simplex virus, HIV/AIDS, chronic fatigue s... Read More

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2010 Findings

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Vincent and Dickson discuss the life cycle and pathogenesis of Onchocerca volvulus, the vector-borne filarial nematode parasite that causes onchocerciasis, or river blindness.

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Vincent and Dick distinguish among intracellular and extracellular parasites, then discuss the history and general characteristics of Trichinella spiralis.

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Stann writes:

I found your podcast through the Microbe World website. Thanks to Microbe World, I've been unable to sate my thirst for knowledge about the microscopic organisms that act as the foundation for our planet. So, I stumble across a podcast about viruses? Hel... Read More

Ron Fouchier has discussed his influenza H5N1 transmission experiments in ferrets at an ASM Biodefense Conference, clarifying several assumptions about the transmissibility of the virus in this animal model. Read More

Analysis of poliovirus recovered from the stool of a patient with fatal poliomyelitis revealed that she had been infected with the virus 12 years earlier, probably when one of her children received the oral poliovirus vaccine. This case has the longest known incubation period for vaccine-derived... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Dickson Despommier

Vincent and Dickson discuss immune evasio... Read More

The first detailed study of infection of nonhuman primates with the retrovirus XMRV reveals that the virus establishes a persistent infection characterized by infection of multiple tissues. Viremia (virus in the blood) is low and transient, with proviral DNA detectable in blood lymphocytes. The ... Read More

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Read More