virology
sa smith | July 30, 2009EMAIL!
Dear ERV--
Hope you don't mind a real question instead of the stupid stuff teh idiots usually send you.
This morning we had a lecture by Salvatore DiMauro, M.D. from columbia university (he is neurolog/neuromuscular mainly mitochondrial diseases) about mitochondrial diseases.
Any evidence for ERV's in the mitochondrial genome?
Cool question!
Short answer-- No. Mitochondria have a different kind of integrated virus...
Long answer-- There are two ways mitochondria could get an ERV.
Retrovirus infected bacteria was the original endosymbiont 1.7-2 billion years ago-- Not likely. We dont…
sa smith | July 28, 2009If you watch the late night talk shows in the US, you probably heard about this research-- Turns out the 'new' swine flu looks, structurally, a hellovalot like the 1918 flu. People who were born before 1918 had antibodies in their serum that could neutralize the new swine flu. Enter the late night comedians: "If swine flu turns into an epidemic, thank God the 92 year olds will survive!"
But just because swine flu looks like 1918 flu doesnt mean its as bad. It means that swine flu might not be 'brand new'-- its probably the great great second cousin three times removed of the 1918 flu.…
sa smith | July 14, 2009A life-goal of mine: Turn HIV-1 into herpes. An STD that sucks, you have to take meds for, you have to tell your partner about, need to worry about passing to your baby in childbirth, but not a soul crushing death sentence, anywhere.
But even though herpes has some behaviors HIV-1 needs, HIV has an important feature HSV-2 lacks-- Condoms kick ass at preventing HIV-1 transmission, but we werent sure if they worked all that well at preventing HSV-2 transmission. Cause HSV-2 is shed from epithelial cells (skin cells), and condoms dont cover all the skin thats shedding... so... *shrug*
Good…
sa smith | July 8, 2009Oh, the things researchers get people to do in the name of Science...
When most microbiologists talk about poop, they are talking about bacteria. Salmonella, E. coli, Cholera-- they have all evolved different, wonderfully complex ways of making people poopy.
But if you really want to make a lot of people poop, and fast, you need a virus!
While we get a pathogenic Salmonella outbreak every now and then, GoogleNews 'norovirus' real quick. You can find tons of current articles on outbreaks on cruises, parties, schools, weddings-- This bastard is everywhere, all the time, ruining peoples good…
sa smith | June 25, 2009Can anyone name one anti-GMOer thats not a self-indulgent, arrogant moron?
Google News alerted me to this breathless expose by an Anne Hart: "Why farmed fish are genetically altered for faster growth with a carrier retrovirus"
Now, for some reason I can only get this article via Google cache. Hopefully this means some editor pulled this article because its so mind numbingly stupid/arrogant/shrill. But somehow I doubt that.
Frequent readers of ERV could probably fix Harts 'errors' themselves, at this point, but Imagonna do it anyway :)
First, lets get this basic fact out of the way.
Raving…
sa smith | June 18, 2009Zincs connection to the common cold isnt as wooie as you all might be thinking after this weeks Zicamscepade (cough, sniffle). Though Zicam was marketed as a 'homeopathic' remedy, zinc-->common cold connection wasnt established by some naked sweaty white guy pretending he is a Native American deciding that Ayurvedic law dictates 'colds' require a 'hot' metal like zinc to neutralize viral chi.
Zinc-->common cold was discovered by boring 'science' a long time ago. In 1974, Korant et al tested a ton of metals ions at lots of different concentrations to see if they had any effect on cold…
grrlscientist | June 4, 2009tags: NYC, New York City, Manhattan, swine flu, influenza, A/H1N1 Influenza, New York Academy of Sciences, NYAS
This is an overview of the NYAS symposium about Influenza A/H1N1 "swine flu" outbreak that I was invited to attend on 28 May 2009 in NYC.
Under the auspices of the New York Academy of Sciences' Emerging Infectious Diseases and Microbiology Discussion Group, vaccine experts, epidemiologists, and policymakers from around the United States met in New York City to discuss the current outbreak of Influenza A/H1N1 -- "swine flu." The program presented information about influenza…
grrlscientist | May 28, 2009tags: TEDTalks, virology, epidemiology, Nathan Wolfe, SARS, Influenza, streaming video
I am very lucky to be attending a New York Academy of Science (NYAS) conference about H1N1 Influenza today, so I thought I'd share this TEDTalk video about viral outbreaks, a talk presented by virus hunter Nathan Wolfe. His goal? Outwitting the next pandemic by staying two steps ahead: discovering new, deadly viruses where they first emerge -- passing from animals to humans among poor subsistence hunters in Africa -- and stopping them before they claim millions of lives. [13:05]
sa smith | May 14, 2009Oh for Petes sake.
During a moment of weakness, I clicked on a HuffPo link on "Swine Flu Could Have Come From-Bio Experiment Lab, Researcher Claims" to see what kind of dip-shit comments were getting posted.
The comments were what I expected, plus an unexpected gem:
Something interesting, not escaping but being given a hand out of the lab! Hope Huffpo follows this one and keeps us updated.
Scientist arrested for smuggling vials used in Ebola research into US
'Vials used in Ebola research'? What an entirely meaningless phrase. I use 'vials used in Ebola research', as most labs use the same…
sa smith | May 13, 2009No, I dont mean viruses you get from sexy time. I mean virus sexy time. Viruses having sex, ie, shuffling round their genetic material.
They do it a lot.
HIV-1 sexy time Ive written about before-- because HIV-1 is diploid, two copies of the genome are packaged into one virus. There is lots of 'hopping' during reverse transcription, so sometimes things dont 'hop' perfectly, and the resulting virus is different from both of its 'parents'. Thats how HIV-1 gets a shitload of its diversity (NOT just error-prone reverse transcription).
So sometimes HIV-1 sexy time leads to subtle polymorphisms…
sa smith | May 10, 2009Because we support our troops and honor our father and mother SO MUCH in the USA (GOD BLESS the USA!), we treat our veterans like shit. Literally.
Case in point: Instead of properly cleaning colonoscopy equipment, physicians/nurses at Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals have been using the same equipment allllllll day long, exposing patients later in the day to bodily fluids from patients earlier in the day (and for all we know, patients from days before).
Now, shock of shocks, patients are popping up with HIV-1 and hepatitis.
Fantastic.
The VAs response to this?Dr. Jim Bagian, the VA'…
grrlscientist | May 7, 2009tags: TEDTalks, Laurie Garrett, H5N1 Influenza, influenza, virology, epidemics, streaming video
Recorded in 2007, as the world worried about a possible avian flu epidemic, Laurie Garrett, author of "The Coming Plague," gave this powerful talk to a small TED University audience. Her insights from past pandemics are suddenly more relevant than ever. [21:05]
ddobbs | April 30, 2009Nature's Declan Butler looks at how baffled virologists are as they examine this virus's DNA:
Researchers are scrambling to study the evolution and spread of the novel H1N1 strain of swine influenza whose leap to humans was officially confirmed last week....
The genetic make-up of this swine flu virus is unlike any that researchers have seen. It is an H1N1 strain that combines a triple assortment first identified in 1998 â including human, swine and avian influenza â with two new pig H3N2 virus genes from Eurasia, themselves of recent human origin.
"It has been mixing all over the place,…
sa smith | April 29, 2009Star Wipe
Lisa: OK, I finished editing the gardening sequence. . .
Homer: OK, from here we star wipe to a glamour shot of Flanders paying his bills, then we star wipe to Flanders brushing his teeth. . .
Lisa: Dad, there are other wipes besides star wipes. . .
Homer: Why eat hamburger when you can have steak?
Lisa: I'm taking my name off this thing.
OMFG YOU GUYS!
Lenny Horowitz has figured out our Swine Flu master plan!!!!1. Release genetically engineered H1N1 virus onto humanity.
2. Kill lots of people.
3. ???
4. PROFIT!!
And we would have gotten away with it too, if it werent for you…
grrlscientist | April 29, 2009tags: Antigen Shift, Influenza Viruses, molecular biology, virology, microbiology, streaming video
This video discusses the process of antigen shift in influenza viruses, such as the H1N1 "swine flu" that has recently been identified in Mexico and in quite a few other countries, including in NYC [1:18]
sa smith | April 16, 2009While Ive mentioned the connection between endogenous retroviruses and Multiple Sclerosis on teh blag before, I realized Ive never written a post on this topic. Fortunately I just read an interesting paper thats provided me with a good opportunity to do just that:
Analysis of transcribed human endogenous retrovirus W env loci clarifies the origin of multiple sclerosis-associated retrovirus env sequences
In addition to being 'cancer' viruses, it seems like another trick retroviruses are good at is screwing with our central nervous system. For example, HIV-1 infection leads to HIV associated…
sa smith | March 31, 2009QUESTION: Do you like pie? YES or NO
ANSWER: Well, I like most kinds of pie. I dont really like cherry. Meat-pies are a big disappointment.
QUESTION: YES or NO!
ANSWER: Umm... I guess if you held a gun to my head, yes?
QUESTION: Great! Here is a nice greasy beefy meat pie! I know how much you like PIE!
ANSWER: ... *blink*
QUESTION: Are viruses alive? YES or NO
ANSWER: Well, I think that 'life' is a continuum. Earth was once an RNA world, and has been growing and evolving since then, into 'life' as we know it today. To me, 'life' started with those RNA molecules. To say 'No, real life…
awild | February 12, 2009
Here's a sharper version:
Parasitic Cotesia wasp attacks a Manduca larva
The story itself is amazing. It's been known for some time that Ichneumonid and Braconid wasps inject circular strands of DNA- called polydnaviruses- into their host insects along with their eggs. This DNA is encoded by the wasp genome but acts like a virus in their hosts, dismantling the immune system to protect the developing wasp larvae. In a study out this week in Science, a team headed by Jean-Michel Drezen pinpointed the origin of the polydnavirus as being a type of nudivirus. It seems that some ancient…
sa smith | January 23, 2009This is, quite possibly, one of the weirdest examples of convergent evolution I have ever seen.
I dont want to get ahead of myself, but HIV-1 transactivator protein (Tat) and Tomato Bushy Stunt Virus P19 are totally interchangeable. HIV and TBSV arent related, like, at all... yet two of their parts are interchangeable...
This is so weird.
Let me elaborate.
Plants dont have immune systems like you and I (dir), but they have evolved their own ways of dealing with viral infections. Because most plant viruses have RNA genomes (RNA genomes can slide from cell to cell via plasmodesmata, berry…
sa smith | December 9, 2008Yeah... so remember that herpes vaccine?
We just got another reason to want that bad boy (as if we needed another reason):Herpes simplex virus type 1 DNA is located within Alzheimer's disease amyloid plaques.
So Wozniak et al cut up the brains of 11 people (who had kindly asked that their bodies be donated to science after their deaths)-- 6 who had Alzheimers, 5 who did not. Turns out that ~90% of the plaques in the brains of Alzheimers patients also contained HSV-1 DNA and 72% of the HSV-1 DNA they found in the brain was in these plaques. There is a connection here. It might be that HSV-1…