Description

Hosts: Vincent Racaniello, Dickson Despommier, Alan Dove, Rich Condit, and Kathy Spindler

The Masters of the ScienTWIVic Universe discuss a novel poxvirus isolate from an immunosuppressed patient, H1N1 and the gain-of-function debate, and attenuation of dengue virus by recoding the genome.

Links for this episode

• Paula Pitha-Rowe (Balt Sun)
• Novel poxvirus (CID)
• H1N1 and gain-of-function debate (mBio)
• Recoding dengue virus genome (PNAS)
• Attenuation by dinucleotide frequency change (PNAS)
• Codon pair and dinucleotide bias not distinguished (PNAS)
• Codon pair deoptimization artefact of CG/UA change (eLife)
• Can engineering subdue viral vaccine reversion? (Virus Evol)
• Attenuation by a thousand cuts (NEJM)
• Image credit
• Letters read on TWiV 351

Weekly Science Picks

Alan - Genetic roulette
Rich - The Huntington
Kathy - Simulated vomiting machine (video)
Dickson - Last Cassini Saturn flyby
Vincent - Decaying Still Life (YouTube)

Listener Pick of the Week

Ken - Cave meterology (Times, Nature)

Send your virology questions and comments to twiv@twiv.tv