MWV Episode 70 (Audio only) - Microbes After Hours - West Nile Virus

05/07/13 • 75 min

2012 saw a surge of West Nile Virus infections, particularly in the central United States. What exactly is West Nile Virus and why do outbreaks occur?

Join us at ASM headquarters to learn more about the biology of this fascinating virus - how it moves between hosts, how the disease is diagnosed and treated, and how outbreaks can potentially be prevented.

West Nile virus was first detected in North America until 1999 when an outbreak occurred in New York City. In the next five years, West Nile virus swept across the continent, reaching the Pacific shore in 2004. Like other Flaviviruses, West Nile is an "arthropod-borne virus" or "arbovirus". Its transmission and the completion of its life cycle critically depends on the feeding activities of mosquitos, who transmit the virus as they feed on the blood of infected animals Despite the incidence of infection among humans, however, Homo sapiens are actually dead-end hosts for the West Nile virus. Indeed, birds are the primary amplifying hosts and their migratory patterns are thought to have promoted the rapid spread of the virus to new habitats.

Guest speakers include:

Dr. Lyle Petersen

Lyle R. Petersen, M.D., M.P.H., has served as the director of the Division of Vector-Borne Diseases since 2004. Dr. Petersen began his training at the University of California, San Diego where he received an undergraduate degree in biology. He then studied medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. After medical school, Dr. Petersen completed an internship and residency in internal medicine at Stanford University, CDC's Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) applied epidemiology training program, CDC's Preventive Medicine Residency Program, and a masters of public health program at Emory University. He served in several positions at CDC before joining the Division of Vector-borne Diseases, first as Deputy Director for Science and then Director. He is the author of more than 175 scientific publications and has received a number of scientific awards. His current research focuses on the epidemiology of arboviral and bacterial vector-borne zoonoses.

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi

Roberta Lynn DeBiasi, MD, FIDSA, is Associate Professor of Pediatrics at George Washington University School of Medicine, Acting Chief and Attending Physician in the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases at Children's National Medical Center, and investigator at Children's Research Institute in the Center for Translational Science in Washington, D.C. A fellow of the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) and a member of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society (PIDS), she is also a past recipient of IDSA's Young Investigator Award.

Dr. DeBiasi's research expertise includes basic science as well as clinical/translational research in several areas. She is currently the Principal Investigator for several clinical research projects and trials, focusing on improved treatments for viral encephalitis, influenza, neonatal herpes simplex virus, congenital cytomegalovirus, and adenovirus in normal and immunocompromised children. An active investigator in the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Disease (NIAID) Collaborative Antiviral Study Group, through the National Institutes of Health (NIH), she also performs research on community acquired pneumonia and hospital acquired infections with multiple drug resistant organisms. Her basic research focused on mechanisms of viral pathogenesis and the development of new treatments for viral myocarditis. She is the author of original research, review articles, and book chapters focusing on severe viral infections, including viral myocarditis, encephalitis, meningitis, West Nile Virus, and adenovirus in patients with compromised immune systems.

Dr. DeBiasi also treats immunocompetent and immunocompromised children hospitalized with severe infections at Children's National Medical Center in Washington.

2012 saw a surge of West Nile Virus infections, particularly in the central United States. What exactly is West Nile Virus and why do outbreaks occur?

Guest speakers include:

Dr. Lyle Petersen

Dr. Roberta DeBiasi

Dr. DeBiasi also treats immunocompetent and immunocompromised children hospitalized with severe infections at Children's National Medical Center in Washington.

Previous Episode

MWV Episode 69 (audio only) - Richard Cogdell - Bacterial Photosynthesis

Richard Cogdell is the Director of the Institute for Molecular Cell and Systems Biology at the University of Glasglow, Scotland.

Richard was led to a career in studying bacterial photosynthesis by a desire to learn and understand basic photosynthesis, he "wanted to know how natured worked."

In 1995, Richard's research group, in collaboration with others, used protein crystallography to determine the three dimensional structure of a light-harvesting complex from the purple bacterium, Rhodospsedomas acidophilia.

This breakthrough led to two key elements in the understanding of bacterial photosynthesis. One, once you have established the structure you can understand its function. Two, this view of a light-harvesting complex attracted an interdisciplinary group of scientists from the fields such as chemistry, physics, mathematics and biology.

Richard's current challenge is to take the process of photosynthesis (using solar energy to make a fuel) and apply it to the world's energy needs in a sustainable manner.

To do this, Richard says "you must break photosynthesis down to it's four most basics steps", absorb solar energy, concentrate it, break it apart and make a fuel. These are the steps that must be duplicated if they are going to be successful at creating sustainable, renewable energy.

The first two steps, says Cogdell, are like a solar battery (easy to recreate). The hard part is finding ways to use renewable energy to drive the chemistry. That's the process Richard spends most of his time working on and he uses the concept of an artificial leaf to help explain this complex process to the public.

According to Cogdell, if the current rate of investment continues, it will be approximately five to six years before we see a small pilot system that demonstrates the feasibility of the process.

Richard emphasizes that if mankind wants to survive, we must find a way to convert solar energy into fuel because when fossil fuels run out so do we.

Next Episode

MWV #71 (audio only) TWiM Live at ASM GM in Denver

Vincent, Elio and Michael recorded this episode of This Week in Microbiology before an audience at the 2013 General Meeting of the American Society for Microbiology in Denver, Colorado, where they spoke with Andrew Camilli, Ferric Fang, Suzanne Fleiszig, and Michelle Swanson about their research on a phage system for evading innate immunity, retractions of research papers, bacterial infections of the eye, and cytoplasmic defenses against intracellular bacteria.