A day late, but a link longer. Here’s this week’s lovely links:
A live look at the AIDS virus – Science Magazine
So cool. Being able to image where a virus is hiding inside an infected animal or person is a big sci-fi-esque deal. Current bioluminescence imaging techniques, where the glowy-glowy genes of fireflies are engineered into viruses, are an excellent tool for studying virus spread in small animal models of infection. But what if you’re an AIDS researcher relying on larger animal stand-ins to study human disease? In this work, the authors used a system called immunoPET to see where simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV – a simian contemporary of the human virus, HIV) collected and spread inside live macaques. The system works by injecting SIV-specific antibodies into the macaques, which then lock on to the virus particles and stick to them. Cunningly attached to these antibodies are radioactive molecules that can be detected using a PET scanner (PET stands for Positron Emission Tomography, and is a fascinating medical tool). Thus, via the interface of antibodies, virology and PET combine to visualise the location and amount of virus deep inside the body. The work revealed unknown reservoirs of virus infection in the upper respiratory tract and could potentially act as an avenue for studying infection in people, though I’d guess that was some way off. Click through to see some great images of the work and more discussion.
Countries Reeling From Ebola Are Facing A Big Measles Threat – Buzzfeed News
Simply put: the current Ebola-afflicted countries had gotten complacent about Measles vaccination, had realised this and aimed to roll out large-scale vaccination campaigns – and then Ebola hit and ruined everything. The successful vaccination coverage in these countries is now way below where it should be. It’s also important to note that the same is true of other diseases. Western Africa would usually have a full anti-malaria campaign in action, but Ebola has wrecked the pre-existing healthcare infrastructure.
As an aside, this isn’t the first interesting science article I’ve read from Buzzfeed recently. Who knew it wasn’t just about the cats, lists and lists of cats?
Ebola survivors offer clues to body’s virus defences – Nature News
A small study has shed some light on the immune response to Ebola infection. The immune responses of four people treated at Emory University Hospital were assessed to understand how the human body combats the virus. Interestingly, the patients had strong T-cell responses to the virus nucleoprotein, which wraps up the virus genome. As our current vaccine attempts are targetted at driving an antibody response to the virus surface glycoprotein, this new information could help us develop a superior treatment against the virus. The big caveat to note is that these infected individuals received novel anti-viral treatment that could have interfered with the normal development of the immune response, and (of course) the sample size here is just four people.
‘Disease is no longer a problem’ claims deadly bacteria – The Guardian
All this talk about stopping Ebola, but has nobody asked the virus what it thinks? No: it’s just another form of discrimination. Whilst this is 99% political parody rather than microbiology, I couldn’t resist – a great article where pox virus stands in for a pox on the UK political landscape. Perfect.
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