The World Health Organization’s global polio eradication effort uses the live, attenuated poliovirus vaccines developed by Albert Sabin. When the eradication program was announced in 1988, the goal was to eliminate global poliomyelitis, then cease immunization with poliovirus at some point in the future. In 2002 an outbreak of polio in the Dominican Republic sent …
On This Week in Virology episode #17, Vincent, Dick, and guest Saul Silverstein talk about discoveries in virology that have had a major impact on the field. By seminal, we mean “strongly influencing later developments”. Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #17
The oral poliovirus vaccine (OPV), which has been used to eradicate poliomyelitis in much of the world, was developed by Dr. Albert Sabin during the 1940s and 1950s. This live virus vaccine was produced by passing the three poliovirus serotypes in various cell cultures and searching for variants with reduced neurovirulence. In the days before …
Vincent and Jeremy recorded TWiV #16 in Saanen, Switzerland, at the 19th Challenge in Virology. They review the meeting, and discuss implications of a new HIV-1 sequence from 1960 for the origin of AIDS. Click the arrow above to play, or right-click to download TWiV #16
Yesterday, 18 December, marked 100 years since Karl Landsteiner, MD and his assistant E. Popper, identified the viral etiologic agent of poliomyelitis. According to A History of Poliomyelitis by JR Paul: …at a medical meeting in Vienna on December 18, 1908, the immunologist Landsteiner and his assistant Popper were able to demonstrate microscopic …
100th anniversary of the isolation of poliovirus Read More »
Vaccines have provided considerable success in preventing viral disease, but they have modest or no therapeutic effect for individuals who are already infected. Consequently, our second arm of antiviral defense has been the development and use of antiviral drugs: they can stop an infection once it has started. However, despite 50 years of research, our arsenal of antiviral drugs is dangerously …
