Virology lecture: Picornaviruses

29 November 2012

I was scheduled to deliver a lecture on picornaviruses to a virology class at Yale University this week, but had to cancel at the last minute. I prepared this screencast to make up for my absence.

The Picornaviridae is a family of non-enveloped, positive-strand RNA viruses which contains some well known viruses including poliovirus, rhinovirus, hepatitis A virus, enterovirus 71, and foot-and-mouth disease virus. In this lecture I cover basic aspects of picornavirus replication and pathogenesis, including attachment and entry, translation and protein processing, RNA synthesis, assembly and release, disease and immunization.

  • Tony Mach

    Thank you for posting this very informative and nice lecture with these beautiful illustrations!

    I find it amazing how much is known about these viruses, how they enter the cell, and so on – and that there are still so details which need figuring out. Surely an interesting and worthwhile area of research.

    Alas, I fear it won’t aid me personally much in figuring out how viruses cause what pathology, how the human immune system reacts, and so on. And especially in trying to find out whether the reported connection between Enteroviruses and my illness (ME/CFS) is spurious (which I suspect), or an lead that needs following up.

    Still, I think it is important (even for laymen) to have such a foundation as you offer here.