What is a virus? How do they cause disease? What can we do to stop them? Find out here, in the podcast from the Medical Research Council (MRC)-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR), brought to you by our staff and students.
MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
Surveillance and treatment of Hepatitis C in a changing world - a Viral Insight with Emma Thomson by MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research
Have a listen to our special Viral Insight episode for #WorldHepatitisDay 2022! Meet Dr Joe Grove, a Senior Lecturer here at the CVR as he discusses his journey into science, the breakthroughs in hepatitis C virus (HCV) experimental systems which occurred during his career and the importance of involving people living with HCV in research.
Listen to our latest podcast episode for Contagious Thinking in which Sarah Iannucci discusses all things Medical Visualisation. Sarah Iannucci recently completed a Masters of Science in Medical Visualisation and Anatomy, a degree offered jointly by The University of Glasgow and the famous Glasgow School of Art. The aim of the programme is to dissect and examine human anatomy and reconstruct it in a real-time 3D environment for use in education, simulation, and training. Sarah discusses her journey into Biomedical Visualisation, her MSc degree, her amazing MSc project, her hopes for the future of medical visualisation, and her current position as Medical Visualisation Engineer at Axial 3D. SARAH IANNUCCI Twitter: twitter.com/sarahiannucci1 Instagram: www.instagram.com/iannuccivisuals/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/sarahmiannucci/ Website: www.sarahmiannucci.com/ The SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein Mutation Explorer App: www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/impact/covid-19researchresponse/sars-cov-2explained/sars-cov-2spikeproteinmutationexplorer/ CONTAGIOUS THINKING Twitter: twitter.com/CVRblog Website: cvrblog.myportfolio.com/ Podcasts: soundcloud.com/user-28288327 CENTRE FOR VIRUS RESEARCH Facebook: www.facebook.com/centreforvirusresearch Twitter: www.twitter.com/CVRinfo Instagram: www.instagram.com/cvrinfo/ LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/mrc-uofg-cvr Website: www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/ OTHER LINKS Degree Information - MSc Medical Visualisation and Anatomy: www.gla.ac.uk/postgraduate/taught/medicalvisualisation/ COG-UK: www.cogconsortium.uk/ Axial 3D: axial3d.com/
In this special edition podcast for world hepatitis day Anna Kirk interviews John McLauchlan, a Professor of Viral Hepatitis at the Centre for Virus Research. John is an expert in hepatitis C virus, a bloodborne virus which can often result in chronic infections. Globally there are an estimated 71 million of these chronic infections which can result in cirrhosis or liver cancer. Today, the development of antivirals against hepatitis C virus enables this infection to be cured in more than 95% of cases however, access to diagnosis and treatment is low and there is currently no vaccine available. We discuss this and more in the episode as we look back on John's successful career and celebrate his many achievements.
In this episode of the review we discuss Dr Kieran Dee’s exciting discovery that coinfections of rhinovirus and SARS-CoV-2 result in reduced replication of SARS-CoV-2. We discuss the potential for the real world impact of this, how it feels to get your research into news outlets such as the BBC and the future directions for this study. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Kieran Dee and PhD student Anna Kirk. Editing: Anna Kirk. Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
It is almost one year since the first positive case of COVID-19 confirmed in Scotland, and in this episode we talked with Clinical Research Fellow James Shepherd about how COVID-19 was introduced in Scotland from mainland Europe (https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-020-00838-z). This work was a national effort involving multiple NHS and academic partners and demonstrates how pathogen genomic sequencing can support and enhance epidemiology and has the potential to inform public health intervention policy. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr James Shepherd and Dr Elihu Aranday-Cortes. Editing: Elihu Aranday-Cortes. Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
On the eve of the COVID-19 pandemic (Feb 2020), we welcomed a very special guest to Contagious Thinking, Associate Professor Dr Nuno Faria from the University of Oxford. In this episode, Nuno speaks with Vandana Ravindran and Elihu Aranday-Cortes, about his life in science and his interests in epidemiology and evolution of viruses circulating in human, vector and animal populations.
In this special episode for our Spanish speaking listeners, Mila and Elihu are talking with Professor Pablo Murcia about how viruses can infect different species, his scientific career and future work. Pablo -who is a DVM- is trying to understand the molecular and evolutionary mechanisms that underpin viral host switching and viral emergence.
In this episode, recorded in October 2019, we speak to Dr Jonathan Stoye - a Senior Group Leader at the Francis Crick Institute and Fellow of the Royal Society. In this episode we talk about Jonathan’s impressive research career path, from his first interest in the genetic interactions between retroviruses and their hosts. Jonathan also shares stories of how he made his way to his current role as a Senior Group Leader, including a memory of the late Professor Jim Neil. Featuring: Dr Jonathan Stoye and Dr Elena Sugrue Editing: Elena Sugrue Music: Ketsa-06-Day_Trips
Prof Nic Stonehouse from the University of Leeds talks to us about her career and how the right mentorship led her to a professorship studying picornaviruses. She also tells us about the exciting projects currently being developed in her lab looking at the replication of foot-and-mouth disease virus and the develop of empty viral capsids as potential vaccine candidates for poliovirus and enterovirus 71. Research in the Stonehouse group spans virology and RNA biology, applying novel approaches to the study of virus replication and assembly in three main research areas: 1) Picornaviral replication, 2) Design of novel virus-like particle vaccine; and 3)delivery of RNA aptamers into the skin as potential novel therapeutics. You can find our previous content on influenza over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Prof Nicola Stonehouse, Dr Rute Pinto and Dr Patawee Asamaphan Editing: Rute Pinto Music: Day Trips by Ketsa
Dr. Andreas Wack from the Crick institute talks to us about the role of host immunity in the response to influenza virus and why we mount differential immune responses to infection. He also tells us why all forms of research are important in this age of emerging infections and we can never be too prepared!
Podcast S4 ep Dr Anna Cliffe from the University of Virgina (USA) talks about her career in science and research on herpes simplex latency and reactivation in neurons. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Anna Cliffe, Dr Vandana Ravindran and Dr Mila Collados Editing: Dr Mila Collados Music: Ketsa-06-Day_Trips
How do viral outbreaks arise? Can genomic epidemiology identify pathways of emergence of infectious diseases? In this episode of The Review we will answer these questions with Dr Kyriaki Nomikou, a Senior Research Fellow at the Centre for Virus Research who gives us a snapshot of the results and implications of her recent publication (https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3000673 ) and the outcome of several years of collaboration between European scientists. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Kyriaki Nomikou and Dr Rute Maria Pinto. Editing: Rute Maria Pinto. Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
Can viruses steal our genetic signals to generate human-virus genes? Can these proteins alter the course of viral infection? In this episode of the review recorded via zoom we will answer these questions with Dr Léa Meyer a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Centre for Virus Research who gives us a snapshot of the results and implications of her recent publication (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2020.05.035) and a wonderful story about scientists being nice to each other. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Léa Meyer and Dr Elena Sugrue. Editing: Elena Sugrue. Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
Do bats deserve their bad rap when it comes to virus transmission? Do human viruses disproportionately originate from certain animal groups? In the this episode of 'The Review' we answer these questions with Nardus Mollentze, a research associate at the Centre for Virus Research who gives us a snapshot of the results and implications of his recent publication. (https://www.pnas.org/content/117/17/9423) You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Nardus Mollentze and Dr Elena Sugrue. Edited and Produced by Elihu Aranday-Cortes. Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
Today in a very special ad hoc episode, we have the personal experience from the inside of the coronavirus outbreak. From mainland China in Wuhan city, fellow postdoc Elihu Araday and Rute Pinto talked with Siyuan Hu, a PhD student in the Profesor Margaret Hosie's group, who is currently in Wuhan and living this outbreak from a different perspective. Featuring: Dr Elihu Araday-Cortes and Dr Rute Pinto and Siyuan Hu Editing: Elihu Araday-Cortes Music: Scott Holmes - Hopeful Journey https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes
In this episode we’re extremely lucky to be welcoming Professor Diane Griffin, from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg school of public health who is also the vice-president of the US National Academy of Sciences (http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/members/3007695.html). Diane - who is an MD/PhD - is a pioneering expert in how viruses cause disease, focusing on those viruses that infect your brain (like measles), and viruses spread by insects (like alphaviruses, such as Sindbis and chikunungya viruses). In this episode, CVR PhD student Arthur Wickenhagen and ex-CVR postdoc Connor Bamford, chat with Diane about her inspiring career in virology, why she’s so fascinated with the brain and insect viruses, and the worrying rise in measles across the world. As always, you can find our previous content on measles and arboviruses over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog Featuring: Prof Diane Griffin, Dr Connor Bamford and Mr Arthur Wickenhagen Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar Photograph: https://www.jhsph.edu/news/stories/2009/griffin-hall-of-fame.html
Can getting the flu reduce your chances of getting a cold? Can you get a cold and the flu at the same time? In the first episode of 'The Review' we answer these questions with Dr Sema Nickbakhsh, a research associate at the Centre for Virus Research who gives us a snapshot of the results and implications of her recent publication (https://www.pnas.org/content/116/52/27142) You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Sema Nickbakhsh, Dr Elena Sugrue. Editing: Elena Music: Something Elated - Broke for Free freemusicarchive.org/music/Broke_For_Free
In this episode, Jack Hirst and Andrew Burns (on his podcast debut) are joined by Contagious Thinking veteran and founder Connor Bamford, who is crossing to other side and telling us about his own research on a peculiar immune protein that seems to make Hepatitis C infections worse rather than better. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Connor Bamford, Jack Hirst and Andrew Burns Editing: Jack Hirst Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar
Season 3 Episode 10: In this episode of Contagious Thinking Connor and Elihu are talking with Dr Laura McCoy about why study and continue to study broadly neutralizing antibodies against HIV, and the role of B cell biology in HIV infection and vaccine responses. She also discusses her career so far, and gives advice to PhD and early career researchers. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Laura McCoy, Dr Connor Bamford and Dr Elihu Aranday-Cortes Editing: Elihu Aranday-Cortes Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
Season 3 Episode 9: In this episode of Contagious Thinking Jack and Elena are talking with Dr Rachel Edgar about about her research investigating how the circadian clock of a host can affect viral infection, and how viruses can exploit our body clocks to aid their replication and spread. She also discusses her career so far, and gives advice to PhD and early career researchers. You can find our previous content on at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Rachel Edgar, Jack Hirst and Dr Elena Sugrue Editing: Elena Sugrue Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
Today on the Contagious Thinking podcast, Douglas and Elena are joined by Professor Rune Hartmann from Aarhus University who tells us about his work on understanding type III interferons, their role in immunity and viral infection and their evolution. He also describes some of his work with fruit flies and has some great advice for young scientists. You can find our previous content on influenza and cell biology over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Prof. Rune Hartmann, Douglas Stewart and Dr Elena Sugrue Editing: Douglas Stewart Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
In this episode, ex-postdoc Dr Connor Bamford will be speaking with Dr Rachel Ulferts from the Francis Crick Institute in London after she came to Glasgow recently to present her fascinating work. Dr Ulferts is currently a postdoc in the lab of Dr Rupert Beale at the Crick where she works on influenza virus and a cell process known as autophagy - or 'self eating'. Previously Rachel worked on a number of RNA viruses, like coronaviruses or picornaviruses in labs across Europe, including Northern Ireland and The Netherlands, before coming back to the UK to work at The University of Cambridge and then onto London. In this episode Connor talks with Rachel about her work on autophagy, her interest in fundamental virology, and her exciting plans for the future. You can find our previous content on influenza and cell biology over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Dr Rachel Ulferts and Dr Connor Bamford. Editing: Dr Connor Bamford Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar Image: taken from Twitter @CVRHutchinson
HUSH-ing HIV - A Podcast with Professor Paul Lehner Season 3 Episode 6: In this episode of Contagious Thinking Jack and Arthur are talking with Professor Paul Lehner about HIV and silencing of these viruses by the newly discovered HUSH complex. Paul talks about his career so far and his research on HIV. He further explains how he and colleagues discovered the HUSH complex and its role in silencing viruses like HIV. You can find our previous content on HIV over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Prof Paul Lehner, Jack Hirst and Arthur Wickenhagen Editing: Arthur Wickenhagen Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar
In this special episode for our Spanish speakers listeners, Mila and Elihu are talking with Carolina Lopez about how viruses interact with the immune system during infection. As viruses copy their genomes, a large number of defective copies are made. Carolina studies the different forms of a virus, including those with regular and defective copies of their genome, that are present in an infection and how these different forms interact with the infected cell and influence its function. You can listen to all our podcasts at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. You can find our previous content on influenza over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Carolina Lopez, Milagros Collados and Elihu Aranday Editing: Milagros Collados Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar
Season 3 Episode 4: This week Jack and Douglas are talking ticks with Professor Pat Nuttall, where we hear about how changing conditions are increasing the risk of tick-borne viruses and how these viruses benefit from the peculiar properties of tick saliva. You can find our previous content on arboviruses over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Pat Nuttall, Jack Hirst and Douglas Stewart Editing: Jack Hirst Music: Siesta - Jahzzar - https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Jahzzar
In this episode we’re welcoming Professor Paul Griffiths, from the Royal Free hospital and University College London. Professor Griffiths - who is a clinician by training - came to the CVR in Glasgow earlier this year to give a seminar. Connor (an ex CVR-postdoc) caught up with Paul in this episode and discuss his favourite virus, human cytomegalovirus (CMV), the road to making and testing vaccines against this very important virus, and his surprising side career as an author of factual and fictional science-inspired books. As always, you can find our previous content on herpesviruses and vaccines over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog You can find out more about CMV from the NHS here: https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cytomegalovirus-cmv/ Featuring: Paul Griffiths and Connor Bamford, Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Siesta by Javier Suarez (jahzzar)
Professor Ann Palmenberg from the University of Wisconsin-Madison talking to us about her journey through academia as a virologist, her views on vaccines and women in science. As always, you can find our previous content at cvrblog.myportfolio.com/, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog Featuring: Ann Palmenberg, Connor Bamford, Milagros Collados and Elihu Aranday-Cortes Editing: Shirin Ashraf Music: Siesta by Javier Suarez (jahzzar) Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
This is the third season of the refreshing virology podcast. In this episode, we’re starting off with Dr Juan Fontana, a structural biologist from the University of Leeds. Juan speaks with fellow postdoc Connor Bamford, about his career so far in Virology, how cryoEM works, and how he uses this technique to study deadly human viruses. As always, you can find our previous content at cvrblog.myportfolio.com/, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog Featuring: Connor Bamford and Juan Fontana Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Siesta by Javier Suarez (jahzzar)
In this final episode, we change gears, from innate immunity to virus biology and evolution. Today, postdocs Connor and Elihu talk with Dr. Robert Gifford, CVR’s resident evolutionary virologist and senior research fellow. Rob’s lab combines sequence data and software development to explore virus genomics and coevolution of viruses and their hosts. He applies virus genomics to help and guide treatment of HCV-infected patients; support genomic surveillance and outbreak response for bluetongue and rabies; and explore the diversity of endogenous viral elements in published genome sequence data, just to name a few of his projects. Listen to him tell us how he became interested in this paleovirology by starting out working on endogenous retroviruses at Imperial College long before the NGS metagenomics techniques come about. Thank you for listening to us, and thanks to Rob for joining us this episode. As always, you can find our previous content at https://cvrblog.myportfolio.com/, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog Join us next season with more new hosts and more contagious thinking. Featuring: Connor Bamford, Elihu Aranday-Cortes and Robert J. Gifford Editing: Elihu Aranday-Cortes Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
Season 2 Episode 7: Today Connor's following on the theme of innate immunity started by Greg and Adam in the last two episodes and is joined by Dr Marlene Dreux, Team Leader in immunovirology at the Centre International de Recherche en Infectiologie (CIRI) in Lyon, France. Marlene combines cell biology, viruses and immunity to find out how our cells sense viral infections, like dengue, chikungunya and hepatitis C virus, to keep us safe. The Dreux lab very recently published a study identifying a new cell communication structure, the 'interferogenic synapse' that acts to block viral infection. See the pre-print here: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/374496v1 Listen to her tell us how she became interested in this anti-arbovirus immunity by starting out working on HCV in France and then in the USA. You can find our previous content on antivirus immunity over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Join us next week when we're sticking looking at one of the CVR's own researchers, resident evolutionary virologist Dr Rob Gifford. Featuring: Connor Bamford & Marlene Dreux Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode: 6 I hope you enjoyed last week’s episode with Jack, Douglas and Greg Towers because now we’re continuing on that theme and speaking with Dr Adam Fletcher, a fellow innate/intrinsic immunity enthusiast, like Greg. Adam (https://scholar.google.co.uk/citations?user=cEzmpPEAAAAJ&hl=en), has led work on fantastic papers onto the detailed molecular mechanisms that our cells use to seek, destroy and ultimate block disease-causing viruses, like HIV, from infecting us. One example if the very recent paper in Cell Host & Microbe https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1931312818305456 (from which our cover image is from). Adam worked previously with Leo James at the Laboratory of Molecular Biology or LMB in Cambridge, and actually with Greg Towers at University College London. Adam is currently a postdoc working 'around the corner' from us here at in the CVR at the University of Dundee, MRC PPU. In this episode, Adam tells us about his work on antiviral immunity and what it is like being an early-career researcher in virology. As always, you can find our previous content on antiviral immunity over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog Join us next week, where we’ll be joined by Dr Marlene Dreux, who tell us some more about the antiviral immune response through the lens of cell biology. Featuring: Elihu Aranday-Cortes, Connor Bamford and Adam Fletcher. Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode 5: Having heard about Dr Liz Wright's work with HIV and Cryo EM last week, this week Jack and Douglas take a deep dive into the HIV field with Professor Greg Towers. Having established a enduring interest in HIV virology at a young age, Prof. Towers and his lab - based at University College London - work on some of the fundamental questions of HIV virology, including trying to understand what the differences are between pandemic strains and non-pandemic strains of the virus. We chat with Greg about this work and about other aspects of HIV virology, including intrinsic immunity and HIV restriction, HIV integration and strategies for drug development. You can find our previous content on HIV and immunity over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com , email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Greg Towers, Jack Hirst and Douglas Stewart Editing: Douglas Stewart Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode 4: It’s hard to get anywhere in microbiology without a microscope, and the cutting edge right now is cryo-electron microscopy, where samples are frozen in clear ice, so they stay in their natural state when they’re viewed. In this week’s episode, Connor is joined by Dr Liz Wright from the University of Wisconsin–Madison, who explains how technological advances have empowered researchers to unpick the structures of viruses like RSV, influenza, and HIV. You can find our previous content on viruses like 'flu and RSV and techniques such as cryoEM - over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Connor Bamford and Elizabeth Wright Editing: Jack Hirst Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode 3: This week we're discussing sepsis, a major complication of infection (from bacteria AND viruses) which can lead to multiple organ failure and death. Following on from the first two episodes in this series, influenza virus in one such infection that can lead to sepsis. The only treatments for sepsis are indirect drugs that target the cause of infection – fine when good drugs are available, but this isn’t the case for all pathogens. In this episode Connor and Jack are joined by Dr Kenny Baillie from the University of Edinburgh, who explains how it could be patients’ own DNA which holds the key to targeting sepsis directly. You can find our previous content on influenza over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Connor Bamford, Jack Hirst, and Kenny Baillie Editing: Jack Hirst Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode 2: Today we are discussing another virus everyone is familiar with, especially now the winter season is here, influenza. But today we are changing tack, and bringing some physics into the mix. Joining us (postdocs Shirin Ashraf and Connor Bamford) is Dr. Nicole Robb, from the University of Oxford. Dr. Robb is a virologist, who likes to approach viruses at the single molecule level, armed with tools from the physical world. Let's hear her exciting journey through interdisciplinary sciences and the potential of using physics to solve biological questions. You can listen to all our podcasts at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Join us next week when we talk to Dr. Ken Baillie on some more exciting approaches to influenza! Until then, goodbye from contagious thinking! You can find our previous content on influenza over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Featuring: Shirin Ashraf, Connor Bamford, Nicole Robb Editing: Shirin Ashraf Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
Season 2 Episode 1: Today we’re welcoming a very special guest to Contagious Thinking, Prof Yoshihiro Kawaoka, the 2018 Sir Michael Stoker Prize winner. The Stoker prize is an annual lecture awarded to an influential virologist, chosen by everyone who is not a group leader or PI at the CVR. Previous winners include David Baltimore, Beatrice Hahn and Jon Yewdell, to name only a few. This year’s winner, Yoshi Kawaoka - who is a vet by training - works at both the University of Wisconsin - Madison and the University of Tokyo. In this episode, Kawaoka speaks with fellow postdocs Elihu Aranday-Cortes, Shirin Ashraf and Connor Bamford, about his life in science; his interests in dangerous viruses like Ebola virus and Influenza viruses; and what its like to balance working life in Japan and in the USA. You can find our previous content on influenza and Ebola - and other Stoker prize winner lectures - over at cvrblog.myportfolio.com, email us at cvrcontagiousthinking@gmail.com or tweet us @CVRblog. Join us next week when we're sticking with 'flu and talking with viro-physicist Dr Nicole Robb. Featuring: Elihu Aranday-Cortes, Shirin Ashraf, Connor Bamford, Yoshi Kawaoka. Editing: Connor Bamford Music: Inspire - Benjamin Tissot - www.bensound.com
In the last episode of our current series Jack, Yasmin and Andrew are joined by renowned virologist and Nobel laureate Professor David Baltimore, the 2017 winner of the CVR's Sir Michael Stoker Award, to discuss his career. David and his lab have been involved in key developments in virology such as discovering reverse transcriptase (and therefore retroviruses) and making the first infectious clone of an RNA virus. If you like this podcast check out some of our previous content about viruses including HIV over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot…_Zeppelin_1908)
This week Connor, Jack and Andrew are joined by Professor Ian Goodfellow from the University of Cambridge to hear about his career so far in virology and his recent work in helping stop viruses in Africa including during the recent West African Ebola outbreak. If you like this podcast check out some of our previous content about viruses like ebola virus over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot…_Zeppelin_1908)
This week Jack and Douglas are joined by Professor Jean-Luc Immler to hear about the immune system of insects, and the value of researching fruit flies. If you like this podcast check out some of our previous content about arboviruses over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot…_Zeppelin_1908)
This week Jack is joined by Professor Thomas Schulz to hear about the Kaposi's sarcoma-associated herpesvirus, the most common cause of tumours in men in sub-Saharan Africa, and how herpesviruses mask themselves from our immune systems. If you like this podcast check out some of our previous content about herpesviruses over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Aeronaut/The_Zeppelin_1908)
Join Connor Bamford and Andrew Shaw for this week’s episode where we’re thinking bigger than we have before this series. Think about how influenza virus and similar viruses like varicella zoster virus - or the chickenpox virus- behave on the global scale. In this episode we're joined by Dr Kevin Bakker, a postdoc in the lab of Dr Daniel Streicker here in Glasgow who currently works on how vampire bat rabies spreads between animals. You might remember Kevin from an earlier episode where he and Daniel explained to us all about their work on vaccinating vampire bats against rabies virus. But today Kevin talks about some of his earlier work during his PhD at the University of Michigan on finding patterns in how viruses infect people and populations around the world using something called digital epidemiology with tools like Google trends. This analysis revealed a pattern dependent on the mating schedules of humans. Kevin also has a particularly noteworthy career path that he’ll tell us about.
This week Jack, Connor and Andrew are joined by Dr Gulsah Gabriel to hear about the barriers influenza virus must overcome to breakinto a cell. These barriers are important for dictating which hosts can be infected by different types of influenza virus. If a strain of virus can overcome barriers in a new host, it can rapidly spread through a population that isn't prepared for it. If you like this podcast check out some of our previous content about flu over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Aeronaut/The_Zeppelin_1908)
This week, Jack and Connor are joined by Dr Yohei Yamauchi to hear about how an influenza virus particle is unpacked after breaking into a cell. This is an incredibly important part of the viruses life cycle as all viruses must enter into our cells in order to cause an infection. You can find out more about Yohei’s work over at his lab's website, https://www.yamauchilab.com, or check out some of our previous content about flu over at cvrblogs.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Aeronaut/The_Zeppelin_1908)
In the first episode of our new series, Jack is joined by PhD student Bernadeta Dadonaite from the University of Oxford to hear about how the flu virus arranges its genome inside the virus particle. Bernadeta studied the flu genome structure by using a technique called 'SHAPE-Map', which stands for: Selective 2'-hydroxyl acylation analyzed by primer extension - Mutational profiling. This is essentially a tool to figure out how a molecule like RNA folds. You can find Bernadeta’s blogs at theartfulgene.tumblr.com and questiongene.com, or read her paper https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/12/21/236620. We also have bunch more content about flu over at our website, cvrblog.myportfolio.com. Music: The Zeppelin by Blue Dot Sessions (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/Blue_Dot_Sessions/Aeronaut/The_Zeppelin_1908)
CVR Contagious Thinking Episode #24: World AIDS Day with HIV expert Professor David Robertson, PI and head of bioinformatics at the CVR. Today, the 1st of December marks World AIDS day. A day designed to raise awareness of those 37 million people infected with HIV (and the potential for that number to grow) and this year aims to end Isolation, Stigma, and Transmission, under the umbrella of a ‘right to health’. This day is one of 9 Global Health days of the World Health Organisation alongside other infections like Tuberculosis, Malaria and Hepatitis. AIDS - or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome - is caused by HIV or human immunodeficiency virus. HIV is a kind of virus called a retrovirus, which means it can stick itself into our own DNA making it extremely hard to get rid of. There is currently no vaccine to stop you from contracting HIV and there is no cure if you do get infected. Those people infected can never rid themselves of the virus but can stop developing AIDS by taking medicine, known as antivirals - that blocks the virus from growing inside them, and those them getting sick. This medicine is now a combination of different drugs referred to as highly-active anti-retroviral therapy, or HAART. A combination of medicine is needed because if only a single drug is used, HIV can easily become immune or resistant to it. HAART must be taken for the life of the patient or else HIV will begin to grow again and can lead to AIDS. Some of the antivirals are so effective that they can be taken by an uninfected person to prevent HIV infection. This is known as pre-exposure prophylaxis or PREP. Other things like using condoms during sex or not sharing injecting drug paraphernalia can reduce the chances of spreading the virus. While developments like HAART, PREP and rapid diagnosis are making global control of HIV/AIDS more of a reality, there is still work to be done. Making World AIDS day all the more important. Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution and HIV and AIDS is no exception. Questions like: Where did HIV come from? When did people first get infected? Why does HIV cause AIDS? And how likely will the virus become resistant to our antivirals? Can all be answered by looking at how the virus changes or evolves over time. To explore this important area and mark World AIDS day, we talked with Professor David Robertson, principal investigator and head of bioinformatics at the CVR. David has dedicated his career to understanding HIV evolution and how it interacts with our cells and he does this through the power of computational biology and bioinformatic approaches. Listen to Jack and I’s conversation with David about HIV, bioinformatics, and trying to figure out how virus hijack our body using a way of thinking called control theory…. Find out more about David Robertson's work here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/staff/davidrobertson/ For related podcast episodes on HIV and AIDS see: A chat with Beatrice Hahn about HIV evolution https://soundcloud.com/user-28288327/beatrice-hahn-the-2016-sir-michael-stoker-prize-winner Last year's World AIDS Day podcast looking at the diverse ways CVR scientists are studying the virus from a clinical, molecular and veterinary perspective. https://soundcloud.com/user-28288327/a-human-a-monkey-and-a-cat-walk-into-the-clinic Talking with Dr Clare Jolly about how HIV spreads from cell to cell within your body https://soundcloud.com/user-28288327/how-does-hiv-move-its-deadly-infection-from-cell-to-cell 8251 Chimpanzee - this image by Marius Photography Music: Noahs Stark by krackatoa (freemusicarchive.org/music/krackato…_-_Noahs_Stark)
Happy Halloween from all at the CVR! About this time last year in 2016 we made an episode of Contagious Thinking (which I encourage you all to have a listen to/see link at the end) about vampire bats and the deadly rabies virus that they can carry and spread across Latin America. Vampire bats can carry the rabies virus and pass it to a person or a farm animal such as a cow when they bite to feed on their blood. If bitten by a rabid bat the infected animal will probably die. Here we talked with Dr Daniel Streicker (a research Fellow who works between the CVR and the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine in Glasgow) and Julio Benavides, a postdoc in his lab about their recent studies on tracking and predicting how and when vampire bat rabies will move through Peru, from the Amazon in the East to the Pacific Ocean to the West. One point raised in this episode was: what use is a prediction if you don’t act on it? In this latest seasonly-inspired, follow-up episode of the CVR’s podcast, Andrew Shaw and Connor Bamford, both postdocs, return to darkest Peru and catch up with Daniel again along with Kevin Bakker, a new postdoc in his group about using a vaccine against rabies, for wild vampire bats. We discuss why you need a vaccine, how would you vaccinate wild bats, and how do you make sure you’re doing it in the most effective way possible. A vaccine has been used to combat rabies in pet dogs and in wild foxes. Vaccinating wild bats might sound impossible at first but you can rub a vaccine into an individual's fur and it will be groomed off and spread when the bat returns to roost. Daniel's team are currently doing field experiments and computer modelling to see what the best way to do this is: for example, how many bats should I rub vaccine on? You can find Daniel and Julio's previous episode: https://soundcloud.com/user-28288327/rabies-riding-the-wave-to-the-pacific-coast or our blog post http://cvr.academicblogs.co.uk/rabies-riding-the-wave-to-the-pacific-coast/ Streicker lab pager: https://streickergroup.wordpress.com/ or Glasgow website https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/bahcm/staff/danielstreicker/ Image from CVR Wilson lab on Twitter (@WilsonLabCVR) Music: Noahs Stark by krackatoa (freemusicarchive.org/music/krackato…_-_Noahs_Stark)
In this episode of Contagious Thinking Elihu and Connor talk with Steve Polyak from the University of Washington in Seattle USA about how some drugs stop viruses from infecting us. In particular we chat about his work on a drug Arbidol that can block many viruses and is actually an over-the-counter medicine in Russia and China. All life lives in a sea of viruses, and some of those viruses can make us sick. Humans have thus developed many ways to stop these rare viruses causing illness. One major important example are vaccines. Another are a class of medicines called antivirals that stop a virus from making new viruses when they get inside our cells. Some of these antivirals can control an infection successfully for the lifetime of an individual, like with HIV and others - like for hepatitis C virus, an important longterm infection - can cure an infection so that there is no more virus in your body. But have you ever wondered what it takes to make antiviral drugs? Steve gives us a glimpse of the work scientists worldwide do to understand how small molecules can mess with viruses. Steve is in the UK as a Cheney Fellow (http://www.astbury.leeds.ac.uk/people/cheney_fellows.php) at the University of Leeds where he's working with Professor Mark Harris and others. Steve’s lab’s investigations (http://depts.washington.edu/labweb/Faculty/polyak_stephen.htm) focuses on the important work of pinning down the mechanism by which Arbidol and other similar drugs can attack lots of different viruses. Here Steve also dishes out lots of important advice for scientists young and old. Find out more about Steve's Arbidol work here: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26739045 And find out more about the work being carried out at the Centre for Virus Research here: https://www.gla.ac.uk/researchinstitutes/iii/cvr/ Music: Noahs Stark by krackatoa (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/krackatoa/krackatoa_-_Singles_1002/Krackatoa_-_Noahs_Stark) Photograph: Elihu Aranday-Cortes
In the latest episode of Contagious Thinking, join CVR PhD student Jack Hirst and postdoc Connor Bamford as they chat with Dr Charles Masembe about his work on some of Africa's most important animal viruses. Charles works currently on a virus called African swine fever virus (ASFV), which causes a deadly disease in domestic pigs that can cause great economic and political turmoil in affected regions. ASFV is a fascinating large DNA virus that is spread by wild pigs and the ticks that feed on them. The virus can move between the wild pigs and farmed domestic pigs. Understanding this movement is a major focus of Charles' work. Charles is a veterinarian and molecular epidemiologist by training and is an associate professor at the College of Natural Sciences at Makerere University in Uganda. He is working in a collaboration with scientists at the CVR to sequence ASFV samples from pigs across Uganda. His work is funded by a recently awarded Wellcome Trust Intermediate Fellowship in Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Music: Noahs Stark by krackatoa (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/krackatoa/krackatoa_-_Singles_1002/Krackatoa_-_Noahs_Stark)
Welcome to Contagious Thinking, the podcast from the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research. In this episode 20, we’re discussing the respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, a virus which will infect all of us before we’re three years old and can be deadly in the very young or old. Moreover, RSV has a particularly high burden of disease across the developing world. Jack Hirst(influenza virology PhD student in the Hutchinson lab) and Connor Bamford (postdoc in the McLauchlan lab) are joined by Professor Jürgen Schwarze of the University of Edinburgh - following his seminar at the centre, who explains what RSV is, how it could be tricking our immune systems, and why parasitic worms and our gut microbes may hold the key to preventing damage from RSV infections. For information check out the accompanying blog post here: http://cvr.academicblogs.co.uk/our-gut-microbes-and-parasites-are-protecting-us-against-viral-lung-infections/ Picture (An x ray of a child with RSV showing the typical bilateral perihilar fullness.) courtesy of James Heilman, MD. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_respiratory_syncytial_virus#/media/File:RSV.PNG) Music: Noahs Stark by krackatoa (http://freemusicarchive.org/music/krackatoa/krackatoa_-_Singles_1002/Krackatoa_-_Noahs_Stark)
Every year the CVR's postdocs and students award the 'Sir Michael Stoker award' to a leading scientist in virology who comes to our institute, meets with students and staff and gives a lecture. Past winners include Vincent Racaniello, Peter Piot, Francoise Barre-Sinoussi, Beatrice Hahn with this year's winner being David Baltimore. In 2015, Jon Yewdell was the Stoker prize winner and he came to the CVR and delivered his famous 'How to Succeed in Science Without Really Trying' lecture. We were lucky enough to record it for Contagious Thinking. Listen here to Jon's wisdom and get excited for science again! Picture is (L to R), Joanna Crispell (PhD student), Ben Brennan (postdoc), Jon Yewdell, and Prof John McLauchlan (CVR PI).
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