Finding Genius Podcast

Podcast Categories: Viruses

  • Virus Vocation – Curtis Suttle, Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia – An Overview of Viruses and Their Many Important Functions

    Virus Vocation – Curtis Suttle, Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia – An Overview of Viruses and Their Many Important Functions

    Curtis Suttle, Professor, Institute for the Oceans and Fisheries, The University of British Columbia, provides an overview of his work studying viruses that live in the oceans as he explains the ecological importance of viruses and much more.

    Podcast Points:

    • Just how important are viruses to population and change?
    • What viruses do to exist and fulfill their missions
    • How do viruses infect cells?

    Suttle talks about his background, and how his early years as a sailing enthusiast opened his mind to the possibilities of learning more about the oceans. Upon discovering research vessels on his early voyages, he was intrigued about their missions.

    He discusses his PhD work and some of those he worked with who were already studying bacteria. As Suttle explains, bacteria are important, critical actually, to the balance of the oceans. And in fact, more than 95% of the living material in the oceans, by weight, is microscopic. To put this in perspective, these microbes produce about one-half of the oxygen on the planet.

    Continuing, the PhD discusses his work investigating ecology and viruses, moving into his later studies and experiments studying viruses that might infect phytoplankton.

    Additionally, Suttle shares the interesting stories from his childhood, as he and his family circumnavigated the globe on their small sailboat. He discusses his journey and the people they met, and how they were able to survive and provide for themselves, etc. 

    Getting back to his remarks on viruses, Suttle explains the paradigm shift that has occurred, in terms of what we know about the ocean’s microorganisms. Cycles are quick and the implications are large, and ultimately it is the microbes that are driving much of the change.

    Suttle explains how viruses have an important role of maintaining balance within a species, and when there is an overabundance, viruses advance and effectively control the expansion of species. Suttle explains how viruses are incredibly diverse and how they can encode complex genetic information in regard to DNA and RNA.

    Suttle talks about his early grant proposals for viral discovery, and how he came to study certain areas within his field.

    He expounds upon the overwhelming number of viruses that exist all over the world, and how they even exist above us, in the atmosphere. 

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  • Bacteria and Virus Interactions: Understanding Microbes with Alejandro Reyes Muñoz

    Bacteria and Virus Interactions: Understanding Microbes with Alejandro Reyes Muñoz

    Computational biologist Dr. Reyes discusses the basics of bacteriophages (viruses that infect bacteria) and bacteria interactions as well as current research.

    He covers

    • How the majority of viruses and bacteria interactions are mutually beneficial, in what way, and why;
    • What makes a phage move on to other bacteria, what it takes with it, and what effect that has; and
    • How this particular strain of coronavirus is an RNA virus, what that tells us about how it works, and what it may take to get a vaccine.

    Alejandro Reyes Muñoz is an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at La Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

    He has investigated the importance of gut health and the interactions of microbes in the gut.

    In this podcast, he discusses phage-host interactions. He explains to listeners that it is important to consider the biodiversity of all the different environments that exist for bacteria, including the human gut.

    He explains why the question “what is a virus/host interaction like” is a very complex one. He adds that there are many different ways in which a virus and host need to interact to get to the point of a successful infection. Furthermore, he comments that the worst thing a pathogen can do to itself is to kill a host quickly.

    He describes more about this complicated and active relationship that has created a city-like architecture of microbes in the human gut, elucidating the importance of gut health. He also explains how genetic material is exchanged between the two and why each gains various benefits and what they are.

    He also addresses the coronavirus strain we currently are facing and discusses what scientist have observed about its mutation rate as well as the type of virus it is and what that implies about its behavior. Reyes also tells listeners about the complexity of understanding genomes and while scientists may sequence a virus genome, they can’t predict what about 70% of that genome codes for.

    Finally, he describes his current work as developing computational methods to id some of the genes that those phages are coding for.

    For more information about the coronavirus sequencing, he directs listeners to a phylogenetic tree available at https://nextstr ain.org/ncov/global

    For more about the work of Alejandro Reyes Muñoz, see his lab website at https://bcem.uniandes.edu.co/bcem-lab/areyes.html

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  • Research Scientist Brian J. Ford Talks Microbiology, Microbes, and Viruses

    Research Scientist Brian J. Ford Talks Microbiology, Microbes, and Viruses

    Professor Brian J. Ford is a prolific research scientist who launched numerous science communication projects for the BBC.

    In this discussion, he discusses a gamut of relevant microbiology topics, including

    • his thoughts on Covid-19, or with the nomenclature he prefers, this new form of SARS, and various government and population reactions as well as ways we should prevents its spread in our homes,
    • his ideas on the consideration if viruses are alive or not and why, and
    • glimpses of his own historical involvement with microbiology, microbes, viruses, and interesting discoveries, including a look through one of Van Leeuwenhoek’s original microscopes and original samples.

    Author of numerous books, professor, author, and scientist Brian J.

    Ford has spent a lifetime educating the public about science through research, projects with the BBC, and traveling the world lecturing.

    In this podcast, he discusses a variety of subjects about microbiology, microbes, viruses and other similar topics. He begins with a frank talk about Covid-19, which he feels should be more accurately called a new form of the SARS virus, which we faced in 2003.

    He explains that it is much more infectious, though kills less. But because it is so infectious and many countries have not stopped its spread early enough, it may reach many more people and ultimately be more deadly, therefore.

    He says many countries and communities minimalized the seriousness, dumbing down the reality of the virus and closing down too late.

    For example, he points out that in Germany and South Korea, leadership was organized and insisted on tracing every case and its contacts—Germany now has the lowest mortality rate in the world.

    The conversation also touches on many other subjects such as the often-argued topic of whether viruses are alive and why, including defining what qualities make something alive. He then discusses his sense of the living cell as not just part of our body.

    He looks at people as a community of living cells, sees us as fruiting bodies rather than an engineered machine of some sort. He then adds interesting stories about his own run in with history such as Van Leeuwenhoek’s original microscopes, his thoughts on microbiomes, and modern theories about healthy eating.

    For more, see his website at http://www.brianjford.com/wcvgen.htm

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  • Coronavirus Conversation – Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, UC Irvine – Viruses, Infection & Coronavirus Updates

    Coronavirus Conversation – Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, UC Irvine – Viruses, Infection & Coronavirus Updates

    In this informative podcast, Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, provides an overview of his thoughts on biological changes, virus evolution, viral gene therapy, and more.

    Podcast Points:

    • Why is coronavirus more concerning than the standard flu?
    • An overview on the origin of the coronavirus
    • How do species continue to thrive while existing with persistent lifelong infections?

    As a Founding Director of the Center for Virus Research, Villarreal has long been interested in research related to viruses. Villarreal holds a PhD from the University of California, San Diego, and a BS from California State University at Los Angeles, in Biochemistry.

    Dr. Villarreal discusses the current state of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), commonly referred to as simply, coronavirus. He provides specific information on the origin of coronaviruses. As Dr. Villarreal states, most emerging viruses that go on to cause acute epidemics or a pandemic, typically come from a particular species found in the region that has a persistent lifelong infection.

    Bats, in particular, harbor a great deal of coronaviruses, as well as other viruses.

    These viruses are specific to the species and within the host species, they typically show almost no evidence of disease.

    These viruses are passed from generation to generation in bats, but have almost no effect on bat health; it’s an epigenome of the bat.

    The research doctor provides some interesting examples of specific studies of mice. He explains the research that shows how mice, like some other species, benefit from the viruses they carry because the virus can act as a way of ensuring a particular colony’s survival. For example, when mice engage in reproductive contact between colonies, the mice that are not colonized with the virus will die off.

    Dr. Villarreal talks about the ways that coronavirus establishes itself in hosts. This coronavirus is particularly difficult to tackle because it is quite successful at transmission, because hosts who carry the virus will often have no signs, or few signs, of any actual infection. He states that this virus presents a complex problem because it, unlike some other viruses, seems to be acting as if it is trying to establish a persistent infection in humans, in a similar manner to how persistent infections become established in animal species.

    In this event that is happening now, Dr. Villarreal states that this is an event of communication that has brought technology and science to its knees with the power it has exerted over human biology. Unfortunately, the United States’ delayed reaction, its slow response to the coronavirus, is going to make things worse than they might have been if the virus had been taken seriously at the beginning.

    Dr. Villarreal talks about some of the medications that are being repurposed for possible treatment of coronavirus. He discusses the clinical trials that are in progress and the need for immediate action. Continuing, Dr. Villarreal talks about the damage to the immune system that coronavirus creates, but details are thin at this point as to why it is happening. Going further, Dr. Villarreal talks about the virus and how it continues to retain its ability to harm in other species.

     

    Dr. Villarreal is an SACNAS Distinguished Scientist, and he was recognized with the Distinguished Alumnus Award from California State University, the National Science Foundation Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, and was elected as Fellow of the American Society of Microbiology.

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  • Virus Expert Dr. Frank Ryan Discuss Behaviors of Viruses and Our Coevolution

    Virus Expert Dr. Frank Ryan Discuss Behaviors of Viruses and Our Coevolution

    Author Dr. Frank Ryan has spent a lifetime researching, speaking on, and writing about virus behaviors. His book Virusphere: From Common Colds to Ebola Epidemics–Why We Need the Viruses That Plague Us was just released in paperback.

    In this exploratory conversation, he explains

    • why calling viruses parasitic is too simplistic and confining,
    • why this is so as he discusses the history of the AIDS virus evolution with humans as an example, and
    • how different mechanics we use to survive, such as placental membranes, are virus derived.

    Dr. Frank Ryan is an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Medical Education at The University of Sheffield in the UK. He has authored numerous books, including Virusphere. The conversation begins with an explanation of the behaviors of viruses as symbionts, existing at a continuum between parasite and mutualistic symbiont. 

    Among many other examples he presents, he discusses AIDS, one of the worse epidemic viruses in our lifetime. Yet even at the height of the epidemic, scientist didn’t ask if it were a parasite or not. Rather, they asked what aspect of the virus is changing as a result of the human interaction and vice versa.

    What they found was a change in the patient gene antigen that had to do with the virus evolution—both virus and human genome were actually altering each other’s genome; so while this may be a virus near the parasitic end of the continuum, human and virus are still changing each other—it’s not just a one-sided relationship.

    Dr. Ryan offers other examples of the behaviors of viruses to flesh out this coevolution, from viruses and the Brazilian wood rabbit in Australia to mammal placental development. He explains how retroviruses function, replicate, and become infectious.

    He also explains the process of the Coronavirus, its mechanics within human cell cytoplasm and the replication process. He finishes by explaining the ubiquitous nature of the behavior of viruses having effects we may be unaware of, such as keeping the bacteria from taking over the ocean.

    For more, you can find his book for sale at https://www.amazon.com/Virusphere-Common-Epidemics-Why-Viruses-Plague/dp/1633886042

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  • Evolutionary Partners: Dr. Ryan Explains How Symbiont Viruses Engage in Our Development

    Evolutionary Partners: Dr. Ryan Explains How Symbiont Viruses Engage in Our Development

    For close to 30 years, Dr. Frank Ryan has investigated theoretical evolutionary biology. In this conversation he discusses the genomic creativity of virus-host coevolution.

    Listeners will hear Dr. Ryan recount

    • findings that prompted our current concepof symbiont viruses, including hantavirus –rodent research,
    • how AIDs and the coronavirus  evolve alongside human survival rates and what that implies about immunity, and
    • how animals have adapted some of the abilities of viruses down to how the placental membrane protects itself from the maternal immune system.


    Author Dr. Frank Ryan is Honorary Senior Lecturer of the Department of Medical Education at the University of Sheffield, UK, and an emeritus consulting physician with the affiliated Sheffield Teaching Hospitals. He’s also a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine and the Linnaean Society of London. 

    He recounts incidences of genomic creativity from his research into symbiont viruses and host coevolution. Early in his academic career, he studied bacteria phages in rabbits, and thus began a lifelong interest. He discusses relevant findings such as the mechanics of the coronavirus and its use of the host’s ribosomes to replicate itself.

    As he discusses the behavior of symbiont viruses, he explains how a virus like AIDS uses a selective pressure on its hosts through survival rates. He explains that if there were no medical involvement, Aids would have changed the human genome to benefit itself. 

    Finally, he talks about such controversial issues as the consideration of viruses as living vs. nonliving and explains what the ocean would like without viruses to keep the bacterial population in check.

    For more information, see some of Dr. Ryan’s books including Virolution and his most recent book, Virusphere.

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  • The Network of Life—Nathalie Gontier—Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, University of Lisbon, Portugal

    The Network of Life—Nathalie Gontier—Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab, University of Lisbon, Portugal

    Classic Darwinism places organisms at the center of evolutionary theory, positing that natural selection is the sole mechanism by which evolution occurs.

    In the 1970s, the ideas within Richard Dawkins’ book, The Selfish Gene, initiated the first shift away from this by arguing that the true unit of natural selection is not the organism itself but the genes within the organism.

    Today, the way we understand evolution continues to change to include many more mechanisms of it.

    Nathalie Gontier, Director of the Applied Evolutionary Epistemology Lab and faculty member in the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, joins the podcast today to discuss the nature of her work, which revolves around an investigation of evolutionary theory and an examination of different mechanisms and processes of evolution that extend Neo-Darwinism. She expounds on a number of topics, including an increasingly recognized mechanism called reticulate evolution, which is an evolution as it occurs by symbiogenesis and describes evolution as a network rather than a tree of bifurcating branches.

    She also discusses what might lead to speciation, how epigenetic inheritance occurs, epistemological pluralism as it relates to evolutionary theory, multi-level selection, and how evolution is a process acting on everything—not just organisms or genes, but writing, cultural artifacts, ideas, and technology.

    Tune in for a fascinating conversation that might change the way you think about life itself.

    Learn more about her work by visiting https://sites.google.com/view/appeel/home

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  • Biological Beginnings – Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine – The Viruses In Our World

    Biological Beginnings – Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, University of California, Irvine – The Viruses In Our World

    Luis P. Villarreal, Professor Emeritus, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, School of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Irvine, discusses his thoughts on viruses, life, and the changes that motivate evolution.

    Is it possible to be passionate about viruses? The answer is yes. As a scientist who is constantly experimenting, with an unquenchable thirst for knowledge, Luis Villarreal is definitely passionate about understanding viruses, indeed, especially with regard to viruses that linger either in the genomes or epigenomes of their host.

    For over 20 years, Villarreal has centralized his study on the overall role of virus evolution on life. And Villarreal states that viruses have had a significant and profound influence on the origin and evolution of life.

    Villarreal talks about his early years in science and the classes and information that truly sparked his desire to learn more, and how it organically led him to his life’s work. He details his study of negative-strand RNA viruses, viruses that resemble rabies and ebola—highly pathogenic. He recounts his observation of regulatory RNA that had dramatic consequences, which was the beginning of his true curiosity about viruses. He delves into his study of rearrangements of the genome by various types of retroviruses. He describes how retroviruses actually work together to create the placental network. He questions why this would happen, and surmises that in order for a mother or host to create life, they must take in a foreign biological entity, the embryo, and suppress its natural immune rejection, feed it, and host it for its lifespan, which requires a significant amount of change.

    Villarreal states that the virus footprint is literally all over all of these functions.

    The biology expert provides an overview of cellular DNA and the many jobs that DNA can fulfill. He explains how RNA and DNA react with each other and outlines their complicated network, although he states that there is much work to be done still to understand the complexity. He discusses his thoughts on human evolution and recounts stories that relate, such as endogenization of the koalas in Australia. He explains that a particular virus that was within these koalas was becoming part of them, and thus their ability to deal with the virus in their immune systems was being changed in real time. He compares this example to human development over time and discusses theories about viruses as they relate to humans, discussing the details of modification as it pertains to viruses and survival.

    His discussion of viruses and biology continues as he summarizes his thoughts on the human species and the many elements that relate to evolution and brain function, etc.

    On a lighter note, Villarreal muses about some Hollywood versions of viral mutations and provides his thoughts on Hollywood’s interpretation of real science turned into fiction for the movies we enjoy. He goes on to explain the astronomic scale of viruses in our environment, discussing the ocean extensively, and the microbiome.

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  • A Philosopher’s Insight on the World of Biology and Communication—Günther Witzany—Biocommunication and Natural Genome Editing

    A Philosopher’s Insight on the World of Biology and Communication—Günther Witzany—Biocommunication and Natural Genome Editing

    Gunther Witzany’s original area of expertise was the philosophy of language, which brought him into the world where philosophy and the sciences meet. After reading many biological papers and noticing that they used many of the same terms to describe the behavior of organisms, such as cell-cell communication, genetic code, translation, and encryption, he realized that biologists were trying to use communication and language in a mechanistic way. According to Witzany—and the general conclusion of a 60-year-long discussion in the philosophy of science—this is an error simply because language and communication cannot be explained by mechanistic terms. Why?

    Witzany offers his answer to this question, and in doing so, gives his account of his concept of life as a communicative structure, meaning that organisms and their components communicate through processes and sign-mediated interactions, much like one might describe parts of human communication. He discusses the three levels that exist in every language, the role of epigenetic markings in the expression and transcription of DNA, how viruses edit code and why more of them are our friends than enemies, and whether viruses or cellular life emerged first.

    Tune in and learn more by visiting biocommunication.at.

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