virology
sa smith | April 30, 2012February 2009--
Republican senators, led by a Susan Collins (R-ME) stripped Obamas stimulous package for funding to the CDC and pandemic flu preparedness:
"Everybody in the room is concerned about a pandemic flu, but does it belong in this bill? Should we have 870 million dollars in this bill? No, we should not."
Stimulus bill headed for passage minus pandemic funds
The sums removed included $420 million for pandemic flu and $430 million for biomedical advanced research and development, he reported.
March 2009--
Swine flu is born in La Gloria, Mexico. It quickly travels to the US, with…
sa smith | April 26, 2012Know what sounds like fun? Testing almost 5,000 bats and over 4,000 rodents, from all over the world, for a cadre of viral infections ;)
Im not kidding!
Bats host major mammalian paramyxoviruses
Think about this: Where did, say, measles, come from? How were humans originally infected? Where were they infected? Just because we have a vaccine for the measles that crossed over into humans that works really well-- what if a different version, not susceptible to our vaccine, crosses over again? Can it happen again?
Without understanding a viruses past, you cannot adequately prepare for the…
sa smith | April 19, 2012Viruses are everywhere.
Theyre even in other viruses.
:-|
A couple of scientists at Portland States 'Center for Life in Extreme Environments' just found a virus in the sediment of Boiling Springs Lake in Lassen Volcanic National Park ('boiling'? 'volcanic'? sounds cozy!). It is a single-strand, circular DNA virus.
Well, okee dokie! Every new virus we find is a good thing-- helps us find new genes that evolution has already invented for us, helps us understand the evolution of viruses, its fun!
But what makes this guy so neat is that it is a DNA virus... with the capsid (structural core,…
sa smith | April 2, 2012There has been a 'fun' story going around the scientific and pop-culture media circles for the past couple of months.
Apparently, a couple of labs worked together to make a 'bird flu' a 'mammal/people flu', and somehow terrorists are going to use this information to kill everyone on planet earth, and this research must be stopped or kept a secret and buried at the bottom of the ocean in a lead box or something (thats why James Cameron went to the bottom of the ocean, right?).
Ugh.
*sigh*
Where to start-- Okay, there are different kinds of influenza. Bird flu, swine flu, people flu-- Part of…
sa smith | March 27, 2012The technology we have available to us today in the lab is both a boon and a bafflement. Example: The screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels in healthy/diseased/drug treated/etc cells. YAY! More information! More observations! More new ideas for research!... Except, the screens we have for RNA expression in cells is so sensitive, we can see tiny changes in RNA expression levels that dont really mean anything.
Example: The techniques we have for identifying viral RNA/DNA in cells is so sensitive... that we can pick up…
sa smith | March 23, 2012This is an... odd... educational opportunity...
Anne Bass' boyfriend mesmerized jury with frightening account of Connecticut mansion invasion:
He said, "I love you, Anne" -- then prepared to die.
Wealthy philanthropist Anne Bass' boyfriend yesterday mesmerized a jury with a frightening account of how three armed men "dressed like ninjas" invaded her Connecticut mansion with a "war cry," tied them up -- and then injected them with a purported "virus" that would kill them within 24 hours unless Bass coughed up $8.5 million.
...
One of the knife-toting thugs then announced: "Now here's the thing…
sa smith | March 5, 2012SWEEEEET!
Scientists found a brand new branch of organisms in the boiling acid pools or Yellowstone National Park!
Identification of novel positive-strand RNA viruses by metagenomic analysis of archaea-dominated Yellowstone Hot Springs
HA!
Before we had only found DNA viruses in these pools, DNA viruses infecting archaea.
Youngs troupe of scientists thought there might be more... but how do you find something if you dont know what you are looking for?
Well, with viruses we have some clues. There are some things viruses have that us 'normies' dont have. Like, RNA viruses need an RNA-…
sa smith | March 2, 2012'Thinking positively':
Thinking any and all observed phenotypes are observable phenotypes because of some evolutionary reason. Phenotype X must have an evolutionary advantage! Even if Phenotype X appears detrimental/neutral, if Phenotype X wasnt advantageous, it wouldnt exist, right? Survival of the fittest! Evolution! YAY!!!
No, not always.
Evolution is a dirty, messy process. Sometimes shit just happens. There is no reason. No higher purpose, from deities or evolution. It just happens. Chance.
Viruses are happy to provide us with examples of this. First there was HPV. Now herpes…
sa smith | February 9, 2012Even though XMRV has joined the choir invisible (rather than the list of human pathogens), scientists all over the world have still been publishing on it. Some of these studies were started before XMRVs demise, some were initiated to figure out how/why XMRV died, and some were done just to be on the safe side.
BUT, lots of stuff has been published recently, and some readers have asked me for an update.
1. XMRV is a lab artifact. Nature cant make it.
We already knew that XMRV was the result of a recombination event between two mouse endogenous retroviruses, called 'Pre-XMRV-1' and 'Pre-XMRV…
sa smith | January 20, 2012Novel treatment and treatment stratagies for Hepatitis C infection is something I have written about on ERV a couple of times before:
New Hepatitis C treatment, maybe!
New Hepatitis C treatment, again, maybe!
To briefly summarize, Hepatitis C sucks. It has infected lots of people. It kills lots of people. And we have extremely limited treatment options for infected patients. We basically have two drugs, and they make you feel like shit, literally, for the 6-12 month treatment course. To operationally define "shit"-- Its like having the flu for 6-12 months, with the added bonus of '…
sa smith | January 18, 2012Well this is shitty! A cruise headed for the Falkland Islands was turned away from dock because of a norovirus infection on board:
The Falkland Islands came under further criticism Tuesday for refusing to allow a cruise ship with an outbreak of stomach flu to dock, as passengers complained about their missed travel plans and an expert called the decision an overreaction.
Tourists on the Star Princess told The Associated Press they were forced to cancel long-planned trips when officials in the disputed British territory off Argentina refused them entry Saturday, saying an outbreak could…
sa smith | January 12, 2012A *very* common exchange I have with the general public regarding HIV-1:
Person-- Where did HIV-1 come from?
Me-- HIV-1 is related to a virus we can find in African primates, SIV. SIV crossed over from chimpanzees to the human population to make 'HIV' sometime in the late 1800s, early 1900s. This event happened at least three times, giving us the three groups of HIV-1, Groups M, N, and O, however it most likely has occurred numerous times over the course of human evolution, it just never lead to a pandemic like what we have with HIV-1 today. You can go get blood samples from African…
sa smith | December 14, 2011For the millionth time-- Viruses are not just pathogens that make us sick. In the modern world, viruses have been domesticated, and are now used to treat/cure diseases. Example #gazillion: Hemophilia B:
Adenovirus-Associated Virus Vector-Mediated Gene Transfer in Hemophilia B
This study is far from perfect, and of course very preliminary, but still very exciting. Hemophilia B is a disease in males caused by point mutations/deletions/etc in the clotting Factor IX gene. If you dont make Factor IX, you wont clot properly, and will have all of the health issues we associate with hemophilia.…
sa smith | December 1, 2011Link (you might want to play some scary music while you read this):
Locked up in the bowels of the medical faculty building here and accessible to only a handful of scientists lies a man-made flu virus that could change world history if it were ever set free.
This isnt an intro to some Michael Crichton novel, its actually what some scientists have done.
Bird Flu (H5N1) mainly circulates in... birds... and rarely infects people. When it does infect people, the virus cannot hop human-to-human. That is, a human gets infected, but they cannot infect another human. Its a dead-end for the virus…
sa smith | October 11, 2011LOOK AT THE FUZZY VIRUS!!
I want to flop its ears!
Or... 'cowlicks'... whatever...
The French have found yet another HUGE virus, this one even bigger than the previous hugeliest Mimiviruses (random link: Mimis virophage)!
This one?
They call him MEGAVIRUS!
Distant Mimivirus relative with a larger genome highlights the fundamental features of Megaviridae
1,259,197 bp genome (Mimi has 1,181,549. HIV-1 about 10,000).
1,120 protein coding genes (Mimi has 979. HIV-1 has 9).
Beyond this, youll have to go to Carls place to actually learn some science about Megavirus.
I know there is some really…
sa smith | October 6, 2011I dont know why so many people bag on Pittsburgh.
Maybe people who grew up In The Big City dont like it, but to a country bumpkin like me, it is a magical city full of hot boys and glitter. *shrug*
Its also home to some of the best virology work in the country. Example:
Raw Sewage Harbors Diverse Viral Populations
One major point I want to get across to the general public through this blog is "Viruses are not always 'bad guys'."
Yes, of course, some viruses make us sick. And those are the ones we notice, obviously.
Long-time readers of ERV know that we can domesticate these 'bad guys'. We…
sa smith | September 22, 2011File this under "Maybe Nifty, Maybe Nothing"--
A couple decades ago, scientists found a compound in the liver of sharks that turned out to be anti-cancer and anti-microbial-- squalamine. Though its not the most popular component of the 'SHARKS DONT GET CANCER!!!!' myth you might have heard of, it is a part of it. Just Google 'shark liver oil' to see the wooers eat it up (literally).
Pharmaceutical grade squalamine (artificially synthesized in a lab from soybeans, not squeezed out of a thousand shark livers) might, at some point, be a useful antiviral:
Squalamine as a broad-spectrum systemic…
sa smith | September 15, 2011This study is a case study from this study (lol):
Chimeric Antigen Receptor-Modified T Cells in Chronic Lymphoid Leukemia
I imagined this scene happened in one of their lab meetings:
I didnt go in-depth as to how everything was working before, so I thought I would do it now!
This paper is a case report of an individual who had a B-cell cancer. The patient had tried everything and anything recommended to him by scientists (no mention in the report of him disappearing for 6 months to Mexico for 'vitamin c' therapy, or whatever stupid thing wooers push to 'cure' cancer) and he was still dying…
sa smith | August 30, 2011Vincent Racaniello, the fellow who literally wrote the textbook on viruses, had me and Rich Condit on his show this week to talk about viruses!
Its a little different than the podcasts I normally do-- normally these are really targeted towards a very general audience. Vincents show is more like you all getting to eavesdrop on some virology nerds talking about virology :)
TWiV 146: Draco's potion
We covered the DRACO paper, and another paper that investigated why an HIV-1 vaccine didnt work (it kinda did?), and virology blogging, and then I had to go back to work so Vince and Rich chatted…
sa smith | August 29, 2011Just to make this clear up front:
WHAT I AM ABOUT TO WRITE ABOUT IS NOT A 'CURE' FOR CANCER. ITS A NEAT IDEA WE MIGHT BE ABLE TO CAPITALIZE ON IN THE FUTURE. ITS COOL! NOT A 'CURE'.
Perfect example of the potential domesticated viruses have to tame deadly diseases!
Tumor Cell Marker PVRL4 (Nectin 4) Is an Epithelial Cell Receptor for Measles Virus
... only the human tumor cell marker PVRL4 (Nectin 4) rendered cells amenable to measles virus infections... It is highly expressed on many lung, breast, colon, and ovarian tumors suggesting that they could be targeted with oncolytic measles…