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TWiV 159: Flu gets the REDD light

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ferretHosts: Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, and Rich Condit

Vincent, Alan, and Rich review concern over an influenza H5N1 transmission experiment, and a new host defense protein against RNA viruses.

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Links for this episode:

Weekly Science Picks

Rich – Livescribe Smartpen
Alan – Royal Society journal archive
 Vincent – Chronic fatigue syndrome and the CDC by Dave Tuller

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Judi – Top 7 in Microbiology

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. That method CIDRAP report is concerned about of making a microorganism more virulent (works for mortality and for transmission, depending on selection criteria) is not news. It has been publicly published to the general public twice before. Without a report of concern, the paper would have passed unnoticed, most likely.

    Alibek published it in Biohazard.
    Laurie Garrett published it. I believe it was in Collapse of Global Public Health.

    Yes. It works. It works well. Nothing to be gained by putting one’s head in the sand.

  2. What about this paper: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21825167 published in August this year. Here they identified the gene (specifically, the activity of NA) responsible for H1N1 transmissibility in ferrets. Although this is in a different – and less dangerous – strain, I don’t remember this kind of media attention revolving around this paper, which essentially deals with the same problem and could be used by hypothetical molecular biologist/bioterrorists. 

    We should now also take bets on what gene(s) it turns out to be.

  3. twiv159.mp3 ,

    2:00 basements,humour

    4:00 listener servey, 10000 regular listeners (!! surprise), 400 surveys so
    far

    6:00 letter,CIDRAP,Fouchier et.al.

    9:00 questioning H2H of H5N1

    9:30 probably around for decades,centuries

    10:20  assumes alpha2-3–>alpha2-6

    5 mutations(no mention of 2aa)

    11:50 engineered mutations , not transmissable

    12:50 retains lethality

    13:20 Fouchier called ferret-passage “stupid experiment”

    14:40  attenuate it by passage

    16:30  should be published*3

    17:00  animal model completely inappropriate (Kawaoke 2009)

    18:00 computer-security

    21:00 pro transparency

    22:30  nature is better in making deadly viruses *3

    26:00 Congress shouldn’t decide about this regulation but rather scientific
    regulation boards

    28:00  shouldn’t be done (if you think it makes a dangerous virus),

    [which obviously the 3 discussants here don’t think. As the accompanying
    sensationalism

    was inappropriate,partially wrong they conclude that there is no reason for
    the whole concern

    in the first place]

    33:00 funding should already regulate it

    37:00 no response from Palese (yet)

    ———————————————————————-

    38:00 NS1   RADD1(?) (pronounced redone)

    ———————————————————————–

    58:00  Uta Schwedler

    ———————————

    1:00:15  pox lollipop

    —————————-

    1:02:30  chicungunya

    —————————

    1:05,1:07,1:08herpesB,1:11,1:14

    1:14  Royal Society makes articles free  philosophical transactions
    <1940 (1918flu?searchable?)

    1:16

    1:17

     

     

     

     

     

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