banner
You are not using a standards compliant browser. Because of this you may notice minor glitches in the rendering of this page. Please upgrade to a compliant browser for optimal viewing:
Firefox
Internet Explorer 7
Safari (Mac and PC)
Post Archive
2024 (0)2015 (3)2014 (1)2013 (4)2012 (5)2011 (20)2010 (13)
December (3)

The first step is the most important
Thursday, December 30, 2010

Have we really found a stem cell cure for HIV?
Wednesday, December 15, 2010

This paper saved my graduate career
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
November (3)

Valium or Sex: How do you like your science promotion
Tuesday, November 23, 2010

A wedding pic.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010

To rule by terror
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
October (2)September (5)

Hiccupping Hubris
Wednesday, September 22, 2010

A death in the family :(
Monday, September 20, 2010

The new lab fish!
Friday, September 10, 2010

What I wish I knew...Before applying to graduate school
Tuesday, September 7, 2010

Stopping viruses by targeting human proteins
Tuesday, September 7, 2010
Rate This Post
Total votes: 1
Blogger Profile

Brian Krueger, PhD
Columbia University Medical Center
New York NY USA

Brian Krueger is the owner, creator and coder of LabSpaces by night and Next Generation Sequencer by day. He is currently the Director of Genomic Analysis and Technical Operations for the Institute for Genomic Medicine at Columbia University Medical Center. In his blog you will find articles about technology, molecular biology, and editorial comments on the current state of science on the internet.

My posts are presented as opinion and commentary and do not represent the views of LabSpaces Productions, LLC, my employer, or my educational institution.

Blog RSS Feed
RSS Add to My Yahoo Add to Google
Recent Comments

Jaeson, that's not true at most places.  Top tier, sure, but 1100+ should get you past the first filter of most PhD programs in the sciences. . . .Read More
Jun 24, 2013, 8:39am

All I can say is that GRE's really do matter at the University of California....I had amazing grades, as well as a Master's degree with stellar grades, government scholarships, publication, confere. . .Read More
Jun 19, 2013, 11:00pm

Hi Brian, I am certainly interested in both continuity and accuracy of PacBio sequencing. However, I no longer fear the 15% error rate like I first did, because we have more-or-less worked . . .Read More
Feb 26, 2013, 12:13am

Great stuff Jeremy!  You bring up good points about gaps and bioinformatics.  Despite the advances in technology, there is a lot of extra work that goes into assembling a de novo genome on the ba. . .Read More
Feb 25, 2013, 10:20am

Brian,I don't know why shatz doesn't appear to be concerned about the accuracy of Pacbio for plant applications. You would have to ask him. We operate in different spaces- shatz is concerned a. . .Read More
Feb 25, 2013, 8:01am
Monday, October 17, 2011

In the current political climate it has become clear that science is a major target of Republican directed budget cuts. However, the soundbytes of politics do not represent the importance of science in our lives.  Because of this, I think it's extremely important that we explain why some of our model systems are so important for understanding how viruses and ultimately human disease work.

In the lab that I run, we currently work on mutating two different herpesviruses.  One of these is Kaposi's Sarcoma Herpesvirus (KSHV) and the other is Murid Herpesvirus 68 (MHV68).  Both of these viruses are gammaherpesviruses. In humans, KSHV only really ever becomes a problem in individuals who have a compromised immune system such as those infected with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).  KSHV is an interesting virus because its default program is latency, meaning that once it gets into your cells, it turns itself off and waits for conditions which allow it to grow and take over.  This is akin to a bear hibernating in the winter.  We do not understand how or why this virus defaults to the latency program, and it is the topic of intense ongoing research.  Additionally, understanding how the virus transitions from its latent state (hibernating) and switching to its lytic state (crazed, angry, killer mother bear) is extremely important in trying to understand how to get the upperhand on this virus.  We know that cellular stress plays a role in this process, but the exact events that happen within the cell that make this occur are unknown.  We can artificially cause the virus to switch states by really pissing off the cells, but as virologists we are more interested in how this happens in a more natural setting.  Now, we can do a lot of experiments in cells, but this doesn't give us the full picture on how the virus affects the biology of the host.  Unfortunately, KSHV only infects humans or primates.  Doing controlled experiments in humans with this virus are either too hard or extremely unethical and doing experiments in monkeys is very expensive.  This is where MHV68 comes in!  Fortunately, MHV68 is very closely related to KSHV so we can use MHV68 in mice to provide information on how a natural KSHV infection might occur in humans without the increased cost of using KSHV infected primates.

In science, MHV68 would be considered a model system.  We use model systems a lot in science because doing experiments on humans is very expensive.  We do the ground work in cheaper animals before we use our findings to help treat human disease.  Other very important model systems in biology include fruit flies, flat worms, yeast, e. coli bacteria, zebrafish, and xenopus frogs.  If in the future you hear a politician making blanket statements about scientists' researching X in Y, take a minute to try to understand what is actually being said.  It's likely that these statements are made out of context and don't accurately represent the importance of the research being conducted.

Further Reading:

Murine gammaherpesvirus 68: a model for the study of gammaherpesvirus pathogenesis

This post has been viewed: 8619 time(s)

Tags:       

Blog Comments
No comments recorded.
Add Comment?
Comments are closed 2 weeks after initial post.
Friends