The CVR Presents Research Goes Viral

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 enterovir...

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:...

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...

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....

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/...

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 P...

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...

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 previou...

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 cvrcontagiousthinkin...

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 cvrbl...

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 pr...

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 a...

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 num...

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...

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...

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 @CVR...

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 vaccine...

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...

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.myportf...

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 treat...

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...

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...

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 und...

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 resea...