Last July I had the pleasure of talking with Dr. Melanie Ott, the Director of the Gladstone Institute of Virology in San Francisco. While I would have been thrilled to talk to her under any circumstance, the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has made one-on-one time with a virologist more valuable than ever. In addition to catching up on the latest news about COVID-19, we discussed her long-standing interest in HIV and the surprising similarities between unrelated viruses.