Tag Archives: Pathogen

How the CVR is tackling HIV and AIDS

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

  *** Please fill in this questionnaire about the podcast and how it can be improved in the future. docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQL…/viewform?c=0&w=1 *** Is HIV and AIDS still important? Every year, the first of December marks World AIDS day (history here). AIDS, or acquired deficiency syndrome , is a serious viral disease that results from infection with Human Immunodeficiency… Continue reading

Rabies – Riding the Wave to the Pacific Coast

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

The 28th of September marked the 10th World Rabies Day, and this year’s theme was “Rabies; Educate. Vaccinate. Eliminate.” While most global efforts aimed at rabies control focus on spread by dogs and other carnivores, the Streicker lab working in the MRC-University of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research, and the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and… Continue reading

How could you cure HIV?

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

The fight against the HIV/AIDS pandemic has myriad weapons at its disposal, such as educational tools; cheap and effective diagnostics; and antiviral drugs used to suppress virus replication, stop disease and onward transmission, but one thing that has proven to be very difficult is curing all the people infected who are unable to eliminate the virus. The difficulty here is… Continue reading

Can proteomics help us cure virus latency?

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

In this episode we talk with Dr Mike Weekes, a clinical consultant and Wellcome Trust Senior Clinical Fellow at the University of Cambridge. Mike visited the CVR a few weeks ago and gave a wonderful seminar about his lab’s work on using a technique he pioneered called ‘quantitative temporal viromics’ (which is a kind of… Continue reading

Battling ebolavirus in Sierra Leone

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

Before we had Zika virus on our minds there was Ebola. 2015 saw the most devastating human epidemic of ebolavirus ever recorded.  This outbreak began in December 2013 in the forests of Guinea and spread rapidly into neighbouring countries of Liberia and Sierra Leone, reaching Nigeria, the USA and even Glasgow, Scotland in the UK.… Continue reading

Arbovirus vectors: a view to a kill

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

As the International Meeting on Arboviruses and their Vectors, kicks off today in Glasgow with the Society for General Microbiology (#IMAV15),  we’d like to present to you the fifth and final in a series of posts about arboviruses, their vertebrate hosts and their arthropod vectors. This post, written by Dr Alain Kohl ,CVR Arthropod-borne infections programme leader along with… Continue reading

Bunyaviruses: we are (one big) family

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

As we’re now only one week from the International Meeting on Arboviruses and their Vectors, being held in Glasgow with the Society for General Microbiology (#IMAV15),  we’d like to present to you the third in a series of posts about arboviruses.  This post, written by Veronica Rezelj, PhD student (@verorezelj), focuses on arboviruses themselves, their virology and how by understanding how they… Continue reading

The gain-of-function controversy: can benefits outweigh risks?

Published on: Author: the CVR science blog editors

Veronica Rezelj (PhD student in the Elliott lab) explores the current ‘Gain of function’  debate surrounding the virology community and asks: “Is it in the public interest to support gain of function experiments?” Feel free to have your say in in this poll: http://doodle.com/3hmck4iwwne4d828   World-leading biologists, including David Baltimore, a world-renowned virologist and Nobel Prize laureate, have recently called… Continue reading