MicrobeWorld Video (audio only)

Vincent and Michael recorded this episode at the 53rd ICAAC in Denver, where they spoke with James Gern and James Johnson about rhinoviruses and extra-intestinal pathogenic E. coli.

Links for this Episode:

Virus/allergen interactions in asthma (Curr Allerg Asth Rep)

Features of rhinovirus C (Microbes Infect)

Multidrug resistant ExPec in animals and food (Vet Micro)

STS131 an emerging pathogen among veterans (Clin Inf Dis)

Send your microbiology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected], or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss atmicrobeworld.org and tag them with twim.

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello and Robert Garcea

Vincent and Robert recorded this episode at the 53rd ICAAC in Denver, where they talked about polyomaviruses.

Links for this episode:

A cornucopia of human polyomaviruses (Nat Rev Micro)Polyoma assembly factories in nucleus (PLoS Path)Overprinting gene in Merkel cell polyomavirus (PNAS)Human JCV as population marker (PLoS One)Letters read on TWiV 250Weekly Science Picks

Robert - The Panic Virus by Seth MnookinVincent - Aliens chestburster behind the scenes

Listener Pick of the Week

Adam - Virology Fact of the DayChristophe - dr Karl

Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to [email protected]

Dr. Jeffrey Almond began his career as an academic virologist studying influenza. Eventually Jeffrey started his own lab and began studying picornaviruses working on an oral polio vaccine strain.

Following twenty years in academics including major contributions in the eradication of polio worldwide, Jeffrey transitioned into a career in industry working on vaccine development at Sanofi Pasteur.

In March of 2013, Jeffrey was at the Society for General Microbiology's Spring conference to give the Colworth Prize Lecture awarded biennially for an outstanding contribution in an area of applied microbiology. Jeffrey's talk was titled: Vaccines R&D: challenges for the 21st century.

On this episode, Vincent Racaniello talks with Dr. Almond about the future of vaccines, his transition from academia to industry and his prize lecture.

David Bhella, Ph.D., MRC Centre for Virus Research, accepts the Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education, awarded annually by the Society for General Microbiology for an outstanding contribution to microbiology education.

Dr. David Bhella studies the structural components of viruses using the techniques of electron-cryomicroscopy and image analysis.

In addition to his research, David participates with the Glasgow Science Centre in public outreach to help teach students the processes behind his science.

Due to his work, David received the 2013 Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education. David's acceptance speech detailed his work with students as well as the stunning images he has produced through his work in electron-cryomicroscopy in particular a project he did with artist Murray Robertson called Molecular Machines which features animated 3D images from virus research. 

On this episode, Vincent Racaniello talks with David about the Wildy Prize, his work with electron-cryomicroscopy, public outreach and his passion for combining science and art.

How can something too small to be seen with the naked eye be powerful enough to bring down something like the U.S. Government? It turns out that microbes, mostly invisible, have the extraordinary capacity to affect our lives – through outbreaks of disease and the spread of fear. Twice in history, microbes have even brought the U.S. Government to a halt!

Join us at the D.C. headquarters of the American Society for Microbiology to learn more about the Yellow Fever outbreak of 1792 that caused the fledgling Congress to flee and the Anthrax scare of 2001 that also shut down government buildings and agencies. 

Guest speakers include ...

Dr. Marshall Bloom, Rocky Mountain Laboratories, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease

Dr. Douglas Beecher, Federal Bureau of Investigation

Evolvability, the Built Environment and Open Science

Vincent, Elio and Michael recorded this episode of This Week in Microbiology before an audience at the 2013 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Denver, Colorado, where they spoke with Andrew Camilli, Ferric Fang, Suzanne Fleiszig, and Michelle Swanson about their research on a phage system for evading innate immunity, retractions of research papers, bacterial infections of the eye, and cytoplasmic defenses against intracellular bacteria.

2012 saw a surge of West Nile Virus infections, particularly in the central United States. What exactly is West Nile Virus and why do outbreaks occur?

Join us at ASM headquarters to learn more about the biology of this fascinating virus - how it moves between hosts, how the disease is diagnosed and treated, and how outbreaks can potentially be prevented.

West Nile virus was first detected in North America until 1999 when an outbreak occurred in New York City. In the next five years, West Nile virus swept across the continent, reaching the Pacific shore in 2004. Like other Flaviviruses, West Nile is an "arthropod-borne virus" or "arbovirus". Its transmission and the completion of its life cycle critically depends on the feeding activities of mosquitos, who transmit the virus as they feed on the blood of infected animals Despite the incidence of infection among humans, however, Homo sapiens are actually dead-end hosts for the West Nile virus. Indeed, birds are the primary amplifying hosts and their migratory patterns are thought to have promoted the rapid spread of the virus to new habitats. 

Guest speakers include:

Dr. Lyle Petersen 

Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., has served as the director of the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases since 2004. Dr. Petersen began his training at the University of California, San Diego where he received an undergraduate degree in biology. He then studied medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. After medical school, Dr. Petersen completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Stanford University, CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) applied epidemiology training program, CDC's Preventive Medicine Residency Program, and a masters of public health program at Emory University. He served in several positions at CDC before joining the Division of Vector-borne Diseases, first as Deputy Director for Science and then Director. He is the author of more than 175 scientific publications and has received a number of scientific awards. His current research focuses on the epidemiology of arboviral and bacterial vector-borne zoonoses.

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi 

Roberta Lynn DeBiasi, MD, FIDSA, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine, Acting Chief and Attending Physician in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children's National Medical Center, and investigator at Children's Research Institute in the Center for Translational Science in Washington, D.C. A fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and a member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), she is also a past recipient of IDSA's Young Investigator Award.

Dr. DeBiasi's research expertise includes basic science as well as clinical/translational research in several areas. She is currently the Principal Investigator for several clinical research projects and trials, focusing on improved treatments for viral encephalitis, influenza, neonatal herpes simplex virus, congenital cytomegalovirus, and adenovirus in normal and immunocompromised children. An active investigator in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Collaborative Antiviral Study Group, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she also performs research on community acquired pneumonia and hospital acquired infections with multiple drug resistant organisms. Her basic research focused on mechanisms of viral pathogenesis and the development of new treatments for viral myocarditis. She is the author of original research, review articles, and book chapters focusing on severe viral infections, including viral myocarditis, encephalitis, meningitis, West Nile Virus, and adenovirus in patients with compromised immune systems.

Dr. DeBiasi also treats immunocompetent and immunocompromised children hospitalized with severe infections at Children's National Medical Center in Washington.

Richard Cogdell is the Director of the Institute for Molecular Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Glasglow, Scotland.

Richard was led to a career in studying bacterial photosynthesis by a desire to learn and understand basic photosynthesis, he "wanted to know how natured worked."

In 1995, Richard's research group, in collaboration with others, used protein crystallography to determine the three dimensional structure of a light-harvesting complex from the purple bacterium, Rhodospsedomas acidophilia.

This breakthrough led to two key elements in the understanding of bacterial photosynthesis. One, once you have established the structure you can understand its function. Two, this view of a light-harvesting complex attracted an interdisciplinary group of scientists from the fields such as chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology.

Richard's current challenge is to take the process of photosynthesis (using solar energy to make a fuel) and apply it to the world's energy needs in a sustainable manner.

To do this, Richard says "you must break photosynthesis down to it's four most basics steps", absorb solar energy, concentrate it, break it apart and make a fuel. These are the steps that must be duplicated if they are going to be successful at creating sustainable, renewable energy.

The first two steps, says Cogdell, are like a solar battery (easy to recreate). The hard part is finding ways to use renewable energy to drive the chemistry. That's the process Richard spends most of his time working on and he uses the concept of an artificial leaf to help explain this complex process to the public.

According to Cogdell, if the current rate of investment continues, it will be approximately five to six years before we see a small pilot system that demonstrates the feasibility of the process.

Richard emphasizes that if mankind wants to survive, we must find a way to convert solar energy into fuel because when fossil fuels run out so do we.