Zombies are after your brains! (Photo credit: Scott Beale)
Maybe it’s the Halloween spirit and all the zombies I’ve been seeing everywhere, but this week I can’t help but write about two very different kinds of microbes that infect the brain. I’ve already covered a virus that causes encephalitis and meningitis, and many bacteria can cause septic meningitis. However, the two organisms in the news this week that are causing fatal brain infections are neither a virus or bacteria, and much less common. The first is Naegleria fowleri, a warm-water dwelling amoeba; the second is Exserohilum rostratum, a nearly ubiquitous fungus found in the soil and on plants. These organisms normally live in very different environments but both have the unusual ability to infect the brain under very specific circumstances with fatal outcomes.
This was written as a direct result of my first year in graduate school. I don’t hide the fact that I had an extremely difficult time with rotations and finding a lab that suited me. Thankfully though, I did learn a lot that first year and want to share what I took away from this experience in the hopes of helping others make it through similar situations. So head over to Gradhacker to check out my most recent article, I hope that some of you find it helpful.
Dendrogram of various classes of endogenous retroviruses (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The last twenty years have been marked by a veritable explosion in sequencing technology. The Human Genome Project and it’s completion in 2003 was the crowning jewel of this burgeoning genomics revolution and played a major role in my early introduction to science. I distinctly remember being a sophomore in high school completely fascinated with the fact that we as a species have taken it upon ourselves to read the basic text that makes us all human. It still awes me that we are capable of this level of technology and that it just keeps getting better, smaller, and faster. Case in point: I am currently sitting 20 feet from an Illumina MySeq, an object the size of a 1990s-era desktop computer capable of delivering sequencing results in 24 hours. The amount of information to come from this branch of science is literally mind-boggling and only grows with each passing day.
Interesting observations have come out of this massive amount of genomic data relating to the non-coding DNA in our genome. Less than 2% of the over 3 billion nucleotides in our genome are responsible for coding all of the protein that makes up a human being. This leaves a large question as to what exactly that other 98% of our genome is up to. Large parts (roughly 50%) are known as “junk DNA” with no accepted role, although new research is beginning to shed light on the functions of this DNA. The remainder of our genome is composed of long and short repeated sequences, transposons, retrotransposons and the topic of today’s article: endogenous retroviruses.
These elements are not human, they are fully viral in origin. This means that our genome is not just ours alone, we carry the DNA of many viruses that infected our ancestors in every cell in our own bodies.
Keep reading to find out what an endogenous retrovirus is, why exactly these viruses have invaded our own genetic code, and the implications of this discovery for the treatment of modern retroviruses such as HIV… Continue reading Our genome is not ours alone→
Syphilis is a bacterial disease caused by the spirocheteTreponema palladium. While this may be something that most of us have (thankfully!) never encountered there have been multiple reports of this disease in the news and a recent resurgence in infection rates around the globe.
During the month of July and August there was a moratorium in the California pornography community due to an outbreak of syphilis that began with one infected performer1 who forged his most recent test results after it returned positive. This actor then went back to work after treatment but while he was still highly contagious; subsequently infecting nine individuals2. Since this outbreak was discovered all involved persons have been treated and the further spread of this disease has been prevented. However, this outbreak this raises two significant questions about syphilis and what it means to be infected:
What exactly is syphilis?
Why is the appearance of syphilis so significant that it required the shutdown of an entire industry?
As we enter another autumn season the memories of summer begin to fade and our minds turn towards the impending winter as the leaves begin to crisp and fall. This time of year also marks the appearance of flu-shots and news stories about the newest and scariest strains of influenza virus. Recently, there have been multiple reports in the US about a new form of swine flu that has been circulating at county fairs as people and pigs enter close proximity (see Related Articles after the jump).
Why is a strain of flu that infects pigs or dangerous or even relevant for people? As it turns out, from the point of view of the influenza virus a pig, bird, or human are not terribly different. Furthermore, pigs are also susceptible to certain strains of bird flu just like humans and can be multiply infected with different strains that could be human, avian, or porcine in origin. What this means is that pigs are an ideal breeding ground for reassortant viruses and their subsequent antigenic shift, and this is where things get dangerous.
Relatively little is known about this rare disease, but we do know enough about the basic virology and ecology of this virus to take effective steps towards prevention.
Read on to find out more about Sin Nombre virus and what we can do to protect ourselves from infection.
K.D.Shives 