virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
On episode #41 of the science show This Week in Microbiology, Vincent and Michael travel to San Francisco for the 52nd Interscience Conference on Antimicrobial Agents and Chemotherapy (ICAAC), where they meet with Bill, John, and Victor to discuss tuberculosis, monitoring infectious disease outbreaks with online data, and outside-the-box approaches to antibacterial therapy.
You can view video of this episode below, or download audio or video files at microbeworld.org.
While on a business trip to Washington DC I took time to visit Artomatic 2012 in Arlington, Virginia. Artomatic is a month-long festival of over 1,000 artists who create visual art, music, performance, film, fashion, and more. I went because Forrest McCluer was showing his work there – he makes models of viruses from computer parts. We have featured his work on the science show This Week in Virology, most recently on episode 184. Forrest alerted us to the exhibit of another artist working with microbe themes, Michele Banks, and I went to see her work as well.
Forrest was showing AdenoCD virus, a model of adenovirus built from compact discs. Below are some photographs of the showing. Clicking them will load a much larger version.
In the image below you can see how Forrest distinguishes the subunits around the five-fold icosahedral axis (pentons) from the other capsid subunits (hexons).
Forrest has made a number of virus constructions from computer parts, as described on this poster which is part of the exhibit.
Below is the computer virus transport module – a crate used to carry the sculpture to the exhibition.
I signed the guestbook – but there were no more virus cookies left.
Visit Forrest’s website to learn more about why and how he makes sculptures of viruses. A gallery of his sculptures can be found here.
Michele Banks‘ work was exhibited on the same floor. Michele is a painter and collage artist based in Washington, DC. Her pieces are based on scientific and medical themes. She is not a scientist, but loves and is fascinated by the natural world, especially at the microscopic level.
These photographs do not do her work justice; there are much better images on her website.
The next day I purchased ‘Beautiful But Deadly 4’, a watercolor painting of viruses (image below). Michele brought the painting to ASM headquarters where I was working, so I was able to bring it home. It’s a wonderful collage of viruses that would look great in the TWiV Studio (my office at Columbia University Medical Center).
Do you know other artists who create art based on microbes? Please add a comment so we can develop a list of these individuals here at virology blog.
On episode #34 of the science show This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Michael, and Elio discuss changing populations of Emiliania huxleyi and their viruses in the North and Black Seas.
You can find TWiM #34 at microbeworld.org/twim.
On episode #32 of the science show This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Elio and Michael speak with Rosie Redfield about her evidence that a bacterium cannot grow on arsenic instead of phosphorus.
If you only listen to one episode of TWiM all year, make it this one – Rosie is terrific!
You can find TWiM #32 at microbeworld.org/twim.
On episode #31 of the science show This Week in Microbiology, Vincent, Jo, and Michael discuss an archetypal protein transport system in bacterial outer membranes, and evidence that gut microbial enterotypes might not fall into defined groups.
You can find TWiM at microbeworld.org/twim.
I just returned from Dublin where I was honored to receive the Peter Wildy Prize for Microbiology Education from the Society for General Microbiology. This prize is awarded annually for an outstanding contribution to microbiology education, including university teaching, education of the general public, school pupils or professional groups.
Below is a video of my acceptance talk. Thanks to Chris Condayan of ASM for the excellent split-screen recording.
While at the SGM meeting in Dublin I recorded TWiV 177 with Connor Bamford, Wendy Barclay, Richard Elliott and Ron Fouchier. Audio and video will be posted on 1 April 2012.