The purpose of this blog is to teach you about viruses and viral disease. This topic is not one that everyone understands, yet nearly everyone would like to. I was most disturbed when the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy G. Thompson, referred to the anthrax bacillus as a virus. That incident crystallized in my mind the need to better educate the public about viruses.
I am your host at virology blog – Vincent Racaniello Ph.D., Professor of Microbiology & Immunology in the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. Why am I qualified to teach you virology? I have done laboratory research on viruses since 1975, when I entered the Ph.D. program in Biomedical Sciences at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine of the City University of New York. My thesis research, in the laboratory of Dr. Peter Palese, was focussed on influenza viruses. That’s me in the black and white photo below, taken in 1977. Yes, I’ve changed.
In 1979 I joined the laboratory of Dr. David Baltimore at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I did postdoctoral work on poliovirus. The moratorium on cloning full-length viral genomes had just been lifted, so I proceeded to make a DNA copy of poliovirus RNA, using the enzyme reverse transcriptase. I cloned this DNA into a bacterial plasmid and determined the nucleotide sequence of the poliovirus genome. In an exciting advance, I found that a DNA copy of poliovirus RNA is infectious when introduced into cells. This was the first demonstration of infectivity of a DNA copy of an animal RNA virus, and it permitted previously unthought of genetic manipulations of the viral genome. Today infectious DNA clones are used to study most viruses.
In 1982 I joined the faculty in the Department of Microbiology at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons in New York City. There I established a laboratory to study viruses, and to train other scientists to become virologists. Over the years we have studied a variety of viruses including poliovirus, echovirus, enterovirus 70, rhinovirus, and hepatitis C virus. As principal investigator of my laboratory, I oversee the research that is carried out by Ph.D. students and postdoctoral fellows. I also teach virology to undergraduate students, as well as graduate, medical, dental, and nursing students.
Since I think about viruses every day, and I have always been interested in teaching others about viruses, this blog seemed to be an ideal forum to convey some of my knowledge on this topic.
After starting this blog, I became interested in using ‘new media’ (internet-based media) to disseminate information about viruses. I’ve summarized my use of this format in an article entitled “Social media and microbiology education“, which you can find at the open-access journal PLoS Pathogens. In addition to writing about viruses on virology blog, I also host and produce five podcasts: This Week in Virology, This Week in Parasitism, This Week in Microbiology, This Week in Evolution, and Urban Agriculture. You can find them all on iTunes or at MicrobeTV. I teach a virology course each spring at Columbia University, and I post videocasts of each lecture at the course website, at YouTube, at iTunes University, and at Coursera.
If you would like to learn about our work on viruses in more detail, please visit my website at Columbia University, or my Wikipedia page. You might also like to follow me on Twitter or Google+, where I often provide links to interesting stories about viruses; on YouTube, where I posts videos about viruses; or on Instagram, or the This Week in Virology page on Facebook. I have also written about my work on this site; links to some of these articles are provided below.
Thirty years in my laboratory at Columbia University
Edwin D. Kilbourne, MD, 1920-2011 (his influence on my career)
Thirty years of infectious enthusiasm
Transgenic mice susceptible to poliovirus
Viruses and journalism: Poliovirus, HIV, and sperm
Viruses and journalism: Off-the-shelf chemicals
Disclaimers
All of the opinions that I write on this blog are mine, and in no way represent the views of my employer, Columbia University. This information is provided for educational purposes only, and should not be considered medical advice. If you think you are sick, see your doctor. Links to other sites do not constitute endorsements of those sites.
Vincent Racaniello
Greetings Dr. Racaniello.
With all of the immediate research on COVID-19 and its quick vaccinations and protection. Why have the high level virologist found a cure….NOT treatment alone for the STD Herpes virus? It is still spreading among the American population. The only TREATMENT for this horrible infection is Valcyclovir medication! It only lessens the severity of the outbreak….again…NO CURE. If you would help solve this mystery…you and your team would receive much recognition and financial compensation. I have a number of people in my circle that would contribute our bodies and any other resources to find a cure for this infection. As an accomplished professor and researcher in virology, I would appreciate your feedback.
Dr. Racaniello,
Really enjoy your podcasts on YouTube! Very informative! It’s helpful to hear your pre-media and pre-politicized answers to the very serious questions and concerns around COVID.
Question for you and your colleagues: (Perhaps you could post this question on your next podcast?)
Our kids (and us, the parents) will be almost 2 weeks out from their (our) first Pfizer vaccines when they will begin mask optional public school next week. We’re a little nervous about it as we know they likely will not wear masks due to peer pressures, etc. From the data you and your colleagues are aware of, should we feel they (we) are still reasonably protected? Also, would it be prudent to wait longer for dose 2, as I understand 8 – 12 weeks spacing appears to be more effective in the long run? Would potential side effects be lessened by spacing out the vaccines?
Thank You Very Much!
Mickey
Can you comment to this ?
I posed a question to a friend of mine that is in the Biopharma business, she heads up a lab that assays vaccines and other pharmaceuticals. Her specialty is particle characterization. Her lab is part of Operation Warp Drive.
I asked about the mRNA proteins and antigens and a whole lot of other stuff of concern. I’d like to know if she is anywhere near correct in her statement, she would like to know as well.
Here is her reply.
“Oh lord that is a good question. I just know from all the data we have collected over the years on them in our lab, typically an antigen is manufactured at commercial scale, purified and then injected. These RNA’s instead ‘manufacture’ the protein in the patient’s body. My many years of experience is that no lab anywhere has ever manufactured a 100% pure batch of product. So, not only would I expect that the RNA product itself isn’t 100% pure, but then you gotta think about that RNA now going into a body and then ‘manufacturing’ the real protein of need. In my mind this RNA product will likely have the same result as a manufacturing process in our tanks. It will use your body to manufacture the protein, but what does that protein look like once it is ‘expressed’ in your body. I guarantee you that all protein produced is not 100% pure or accurately folded, scares the beejeezus out of me. The company can make the RNA that ‘should’ express the right protein, but there is no way to 100% test what the protein that it makes in a patient’s body truly is. They can do experiments to ‘mimic’ what happens when injected, but at the end, there is no way to prove what really happens in a patient’s body post-injection. In my opinion.
Thanks for reading
Hollis
I recognize that the Covid-19 mRNA vaccine is more robust than immunity gained “naturally” from Covid-19 infection, how do you clearly explain this to the anti-vaxers?
This paragraph in an article relating to Ecohealth Alliance triggered in me great concern of biological material gathered for research in a locked down laboratory. Might the gathering and subsequent centralized locations of collected material be a multuliplier event long before lockdown and purpose of research?
Said paragraph (s);
EcoHealth Alliance and Daszak have been working with Shi Zhengli, a virologist at the WIV, for more than 15 years. Since 2014, an NIH grant has funded EcoHealth’s research in China, which involves collecting faeces and other samples from bats, and blood samples from people at risk of infection from bat-origin viruses. Scientific studies suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus most likely originated in bats, and research on the topic could be crucial to identifying other viruses that might cause future pandemics. The WIV is a subrecipient on the grant.
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