virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
Jens Kuhn returns to present a brief history of bioweapons, with a focus on the program in the Soviet Union, the largest ever undertaken, and his experience working in the decommissioned Soviet bioweapons laboratory known as Vector.
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Download TWiV 508 (77 MB .mp3, 128 min)
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Show notes at microbe.tv/twiv
Later this month (May 2014) the World Health Assembly will decide whether to destroy the remaining stocks of variola virus – the agent of smallpox – or to allow continued research on the virus at WHO-approved laboratories.
After the eradication of smallpox in 1980, the World Health Organization called for destruction of known remaining stocks of variola virus. The known remaining stocks of the virus are closely guarded in the United States and Russia. These consist not of a single vial of the virus, but of hundreds of different strains, many of which have not been fully characterized, nor has their genome sequence been determined.
It can be argued that there still remains a good deal of work to be done on variola virus, including development of newer diagnostic tests, and identification of additional countermeasures (antivirals and vaccines have been stockpiled in the US). Damon, Damaso, and McFadden have written a summary of the research on variola virus that should be done. We also discussed whether the remaining variola virus stocks should be destroyed on episode #284 of This Week in Virology.
We are interested in what readers of this blog think about this issue – please fill out the poll below.
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I joined Buddhini Samarasinghe, Scott Lewis, Tommy Leung, and William McEwan for a discussion of the avian influenza H5N1 virus transmission experiments done in ferrets.
Studio 360 with Kurt Andersen is a radio show co-produced by Public Radio International and WNYC. The show for the week of 8 March 2013 is called ‘Going Viral‘ and includes seven segments entitled ‘Viruses at the movies’, ‘Does your zombie have rabies’, and ‘Playing against the virus’. They did speak with one virologist for a segment called ‘Reconstructing viruses‘.
To record this segment of Studio 360 I traveled down to the WNYC studios on Varick Street in New York. I sat in a glass-walled, silent room with headphones and before a large microphone. I spoke with the show’s host, Kurt Andersen, who was in a studio somewhere in Los Angeles. The sound quality was excellent and our conversation was wide-ranging, including a discussion on synthetic viruses, avian influenza H5N1, dual-use research, bioterrorism, and zombies. We spoke for 30 minutes but only a bit of that ended up being released. I think that a five minute discussion of science is far less than optimal – I favor long-form science discussions which can truly inform the listener.
You can listen to my segment below or over at the Studio 360 website.
Last fall the science show This Week in Virology teamed up with MicrobeWorld (the public outreach website by the American Society for Microbiology) and Boston University School of Medicine to produce a documentary offering a rarely seen behind-the-scenes view of a biosafety level 4 (BSL-4) laboratory. Today I am pleased to announce the release of Threading the NEDIL: TWiV goes inside a BSL-4.
Constructed in 2009 in the highly populated South End neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories (NEIDL) facility contains labs that operate at biosafety levels 2, 3 and 4. Due to its location the NEIDL has faced a raft of legal and regulatory hurdles that have prevented BSL-3 and BSL-4 labs from becoming functional.
Threading the NEIDL is a 1-hour documentary in which Assistant Director Ron Corley along with Elke Mühlberger and Paul Duprex, virologists that will be working the facility, lead the TWiV team on a walkthrough of the BLS-4 laboratory. They explore how the NEDIL is secured from unauthorized entry, what’s like to wear a BLS-4 level safety suit, how the facility is constructed to make it safe, and how workers carry out experiments with highly dangerous viruses such as Ebola virus and Lassa virus without jeopardizing their health or that of the surrounding community.
The documentary is a never before seen look at how one of America’s state of the art biodefense research facilities operates and the security measures put in place to keep it safe, even in the heart of a major urban center.
Threading the NEIDL from microbeworld on Vimeo.
The US Office of Science and Technology Policy recently released proposed guidelines for maximizing the benefits and minimizing misuse of life sciences research. The measures establish oversight responsibilities for universities and other institutions that receive Federal funding:
Specifically, such institutions would be required to review their current life sciences research involving those pathogens or toxins deemed to be the most dangerous or most amenable to misuse, and then work with the researchers and funding agencies to develop appropriate risk mitigation plans.
This adds to a previously announced internal policy to identify DURC research and institute risk-reducing mitigation plans.
OSTP has requested comments on the proposed policy from researchers, institutions, consumers, security experts, and other stakeholders. The proposed policy can be found at this location (pdf), and instructions on how to submit comments can be found in the Federal Register.
Here is the gist of the proposal. It pertains to you if you get Federal money to work on the following organisms or toxins:
And if your research might have the following consequences:
If any of this applies to you, it is necessary for you and your institution to develop and implement a risk mitigation plan which must be approved by the funding agency.
If any of this applies to you, but you do not receive Federal funds for the research, you are strongly encouraged to carry out similar oversight procedures.