virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
Ian Lipkin, Columbia University, New York, and Lyle Petersen, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Fort Collins, Colorado, discuss recently emerged pathogens, and how to prepare should their range expand. When asked if MERS-coronavirus would cause the next pandemic, Ian Lipkin responded ‘I don’t have a crystal ball’.
Recorded at the Annual Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology, Boston, MA on 19 May 2014.
On episode #247 of the science show This Week in Virology, Ian Lipkin joins Vincent, Alan, Rich, and Kathy to describe how his laboratory is searching for the origin of MERS-coronavirus.
You can find TWiV #247 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
On episode #231 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent meets up with Amit, Lan, and Ian to discuss their discovery of hepaciviruses and pegiviruses in bats and rodents.
You can find TWiV #231 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
Hosts:Â Vincent Racaniello, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, Dickson Despommier, Amit Kapoor, and Ian LipkinThe TWiV team speaks with Amit Kapoor and Ian Lipkin about how they discovered canine hepacivirus, and its implications for the origin and evolution of hepatitis C virus.
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Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #137 (69 MB .mp3, 96 minutes).
Subscribe to TWiV (free) in iTunes , at the Zune Marketplace, by the RSS feed, by email, or listen on your mobile device with the Microbeworld app.
Alan – What do marine mammals eat? (YouTube)
Rich – NIH rocket boys
Dickson – Cytomegalovirus needs an antiviral protein (Science)
Vincent – All pdfs free at National Academy of Science Press
Adriana and Ye Jung  – The man who was cured of AIDS (article one and two)
Send your virology questions and comments (email or mp3 file) to twiv@microbe.tv, or call them in to 908-312-0760. You can also post articles that you would like us to discuss at microbeworld.org and tag them with twiv.
Late last year virologist Ian Lipkin was asked by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases head Anthony Fauci to coordinate a multi-center study of CFS patients. Newly drawn blood samples from 100 CFS patients and 100 healthy controls from around the US will be blinded and sent to three groups – FDA, CDC and the Whittemore Peterson Institute – and assayed for the presence of XMRV. After the recent publication by Ila Singh on XMRV in CFS patients, Dr. Lipkin sent me the following note:
Dear Vince-
We have a plethora of explanations for how CFS/XMRV/MLV studies could go awry. However, we don’t have evidence that they have. Absent an appropriately powered study representing blinded analyses by Mikovitz and Lo/Alter of samples from well characterized subjects using their reagents, protocols and people, all we have is more confusion.
I remain agnostic. We won’t have answers until the end of 2011.
The NIH will post something on our study today.
Ian
My colleague Ian Lipkin has developed new methods to rapidly identify pathogens. At Pop!Tech 2008, he explained how an increased understanding of zoonotic diseases, together with advancements in diagnostic technology, are helping to detect the next emerging virus.