Cvr Podcast Contagious Thinking

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 cvrcontagiousthinki

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

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

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,

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

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 antivira