Viruses: The enigma of life
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This episode is with Pavel Plevka. He is a research group leader at Central European institute of technology (CEITEC). His research is focused on solving the structures of viruses in order to understand their mechanism of action.
For this conversation, My co-host is Anna Papageorgiou.
Here we talk about general aspects of viruses, their genomes, evolution of viruses, their infection strategies, impact of viruses on human health, environment and agriculture.
About the guest
00:00:00 Introduction
00:01:01 What is a virus and why do we study them?
00:02:02 Size of a viruses
00:03:57 Viroids and Gene Transfer Agents (GTA)
00:05:17 How to visualize viruses?
00:07:03 Different structures of viruses
00:08:34 Classification of viruses
00:10:01 How do viruses recognize their hosts and infect them?
00:16:58 Viral mechanism of action
00:19:42 How viruses can infect multiple hosts?
00:21:52 Essential features of viral genomes
00:23:30 Membranes and envelopes of viruses
00:26:05 Evolutionary origins of viruses
00:29:22 Why viruses are not part of the tree of life?
00:30:17 Co-evolution of viruses and hosts
00:37:24 How widespread viruses are?
00:39:47 Therapeutic strategies against viruses
00:42:26 Prevention against viruses
00:44:55 Phage therapy
00:47:27 Use of viruses in cancer therapies
00:49:00 Gene therapy
00:51:02 Importance of viruses for ecology
00:54:44 How viruses survive the extreme conditions?
00:58:40 Honeybee viruses
01:00:12 Do viruses carry known functions?
01:01:35 Are viruses alive?
01:02:29 What the technology lacks?
01:03:34 Pavel's favorite virus
01:04:21 Recommended article
01:05:10 Thank you!