Year: 2022

DNA VACCINES. "The investigational Ebolavirus and Marburgvirus WT GP DNA vaccines were safe, well tolerated, and immunogenic in this phase I study." https://lnkd.in/dEyA-42 View in LinkedIn

PARASITIC VIRUSES "represent a special case of viruses that were unable to reach persistent status by a sessile life-style." https://lnkd.in/e-pJFM6 View in LinkedIn

NON-PARASITIC VIRUSES. "Most viruses, however, are stable, persistent living beings that do not colonize a host organism for simple selfish purposes. Rather, they display varying survival strategies which can differ according to the host they inhabit." https://lnkd.in/e-pJFM6 View in LinkedIn

NOT JUST DISEASE CAUSING. Most viruses do not cause human disease. Many viruses perform useful functions for their hosts by persistent symbiosis. Scientists have characterized many disease-causing viruses, and this has led us to think that all viruses are dangerous. This has led us to a war on microbes mentality. We are only just now beginning to characterize the full viral universe. https://lnkd.in/duptQ7b View in LinkedIn

LIVING VIRAL MUSEUM. "The human genome is a living document of ancient and now extinct viruses. Indeed, DNA of retroviral origin makes up 8% of human genome sequence. At a very minimum, each of the more than 31 families of endogenous retrovirus found in the human genome must have arisen from one or more separate paleoviruses that infected the ancestors of modern humans." https://lnkd.in/d_5Sz4c View in LinkedIn

RESTATEMENT. "Eight percent of human genome endogenous retroviruses – “junk DNA”. Unable to be reactivated, harmless. 8% “junk DNA” suggests major evolutionary role of viruses." https://lnkd.in/djwcKBi View in LinkedIn

FOSSIL RECORD. "Retroviral infections that impacted the genome had to have happened repeatedly during primate evolution with the most recent episode in humans between 100,000 and 1 million years ago. This impressive fossil record, represented by endogenous retroviruses, is still likely a vast underestimate of the number of retroviral infections of human ancestors. Many retroviruses do not infect the germline." https://lnkd.in/d_5Sz4c View in LinkedIn

HOME OF A QUADRILLION VIRUSES. "We have only recently started to appreciate that the human body is home to far more than human cells: we harbor at least 100 trillion (10(14)) microbial cells and a quadrillion viruses in and on us. Collectively, the microbial associates that reside in and on the human body constitute our microbiota, and the genes they encode is known as our microbiome." https://lnkd.in/dRUEtkS View in LinkedIn

MICROBIOME. "Only a small minority of these can be cultured, and recently, culture-independent high-throughput sequencing has greatly expanded the repertoire of known microbes both in our bodies and in the environment. Highly multiplexed studies have made it possible to characterize and compare many samples rapidly, enabling the detection of spatial, temporal, and disease-associated patterns in our microbiota." https://lnkd.in/dRUEtkS View in LinkedIn

HUMAN VIROME. "The eukaryotes and viruses that are associated with humans have typically been studied with a focus on specific pathogenic organisms...recent research is beginning to show that even healthy humans harbor a diverse consortium of viruses that make up the human virome. Most viral sequences currently being identified in mammals are novel, suggesting that we are just beginning to characterize the diversity within the human virome." https://lnkd.in/dRUEtkS View in LinkedIn