Virus Talk

Too short for virology blog, too long for Twitter

At ASV in Bozeman July 2010

In July 2010 Rich Condit and I were at the American Society for Virology meeting in Bozeman, MT to do the first TWiV at that meeting. There we met John Ngunjiri, a Ph.D. student with Philip I. Marcus at UConn in Storrs, CT. When I visited Dr. Marcus last week I saw on the bulletin board a photo that we had taken with John. I asked him to send it to me - and here it is.

Asv_2010

I was in Storrs to interview Dr. Marcus for TWiV. We talked about his cloning of HeLa cells in the early 1950s, the first feat of its kind. Coming up soon at www.twiv.tv.

Virology course featured on iTunes University

Today Apple Inc. is featuring my virology course on iTunes University. The screen shot below is from the iTunes U app running on an iPad. I'm very pleased because this exposure allows me to teach more people about the important field of virology

Virology_itunesu

If only Google would let me post my long lecture videos on YouTube...

My copy of PATOOMB

Matt Frieman's pick of the week on TWiV #175 was 'Phage and the Origins of Molecular Biology' (PATOOMB). This is a terrific compendium of stories by the movers and shakers from the early days of molecular biology, in honor of Max Delbruck.

I have read the book many times since I obtained it as a graduate student in the 1970s, as you can see by this highly dog-eared copy. Highly recommended for insight into how the field developed.

One of my favorite parts: a description of binge virology between Salvador Luria and Max Delbruck:

"Delbruck and I adjourned to New York for a 48-hour bout of experimentation in my laboratory at the College of Physicians and Surgeons". They did plaque assays for two days. 

Photo

Le virus le plus dangereux?

Dorian sent the photograph below along with the following note.

Here's a picture I took in Paris last weekend of a news kiosk. The science magazine "Science et Avenir" headlined with the story "They created the most dangerous virus in the world". Inside, the story was much more balanced, with comments in favour of open publication of the results from Bruno Lina, Sylvie van der Werf, and Peter Doherty. Luc Montagnier on the other hand, was quoted as saying "This kind of work should never have been done".

I think it's a good follow-up to the previous post here with a similar USA Today headline  - which just goes to show that headline writers are the same everywhere.

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USA Today's terrible H5N1 headline

Sent to me today by Rich Condit: photo of the front page of USA Today. The article by Dan Vergano is well balanced, but the headline and photo are terrible. My main problem: 'New man-made bird flu strain raises prospect of deadly pandemic'. Headline writers, please see Peter Palese and Taia Wang's article.

Usa_today

TWiV iPhone case

I just made what I think is the coolest iPhone case - with a TWiV logo. It is made by a company called Uncommon. The image wraps around the case for a great look. See the images below.

If you would like to make a TWiV case for your iPhone (4/4S/3GS) or iPod touch, start by downloading this photo - it's properly sized. It looks odd but don't worry, it will fit the case perfectly.

Next, upload it to Uncommon, click 'Products', select the case you want, and then click 'Customize'. You'll be prompted to upload the TWiV photo. Then you resize it, using the provided tools, so that the edge of the photo just overlaps the guides that they provide. It will be quite clear once you are there. At first the image will be much larger than the case, but use the slider to shrink it down until it just fits.

Then just order it. We don't make any money on this, but we thought it would be a good way to spread the word about TWiV.

You are welcome to use the image for other cases as well. If it doesn't fit, let me know (twiv at twiv dot tv) and I can make a suitable image for you.

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Viral dessert contest

At the Harvard Virology Program Retreat for 2011, the students ran a viral dessert contest. The entrants were judged during the poster session. After the winner was announced, the viruses - I mean desserts - were consumed. They were the tastiest viruses I've ever eaten. See if you can see which is which. The lab glassware is easy - but can you find the cold sore, bacteriophage, plaque assay, and adenovirus, among others?

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Harvard Virology Program Retreat 2011

I was invited to be the Keynote Speaker at the Harvard Virology Program Retreat, which took place in early September 2011. This is a wonderful graduate program with 60+ virology mentors and a large student population. To be selected as the Keynote Speaker was a great honor. Here is part of the invitation letter that I received from a fourth year graduate student, Kevin McCarthy:

I am writing you on behalf of the organizing committee for the 2011 Harvard Virology Retreat. We have unanimously agreed to invite you as the keynote speaker to talk to our program about your insights and experience with science communication. The retreat will take place on Sept 9th  and 10th  in Exeter, New Hampshire.  The event is entirely organized by the third year class, and for us your blog and TWiV have a special significance, since our entrance into the program in fall 2008 coincided with your first podcasts.

The fact that your work involves multiple types of media and encompasses both research and communication makes it very difficult to ask you to be a typical keynote speaker. However, this is the exact reason we want you to attend as the “keynote” to our retreat program. We are interested in hearing your message and would like to work with you to determine the best way to accomplish that.

Instead of presenting the usual Keynote Address at the retreat, I recorded a session of TWiV (This Week in Virology). You can find that episode here.

Here are some photographs from the retreat. The fact that it was organized by students made it very special, and the students were highly engaged. If you are searching for a terrific Ph.D. program in virology, you should investigate the program at Harvard.

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