By Ina Ersing
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Adeno-associated viruses (AAV) are an important biological tool that allow scientists to express a gene of interest in a cell or animal model. AAV plasmids contain several important elements, but among the most important are the inverted terminal repeats (ITRs). ITRs are the ...
The blood-brain-barrier (BBB) exists to prevent substances in the blood, like proteins and viruses, from crossing into the brain. While helpful from a biological standpoint, it makes delivering AAVs to the brain difficult. Traditionally, delivery is achieved through the use of ...
In April 2022, physicians in Scotland began noticing unusual cases of acute hepatitis in the pediatric population. Once ~400 cases had amassed in places around the world, hypotheses began to develop that this illness was caused by either SARS-CoV-2, Adenovirus type 41 (AdV-41), ...
Viruses are simple: a genome packaged in a protein shell (Taylor, 2014). They’re so simple that we can’t even decide if they’re alive or not. Yet these simple, small particles have quite the outsized impact — and not just on the disease front.
The Retroviridae (commonly called retrovirus) family — of which HIV is a member — may seem like an unlikely candidate to use as a viral vector, but retroviruses have been developed into some of the most widely used tools in molecular biology. “Retroviruses” is an umbrella term ...
For safety and production reasons, multiple plasmids with many components are used to package lab grown viruses. It can be intimidating at first to look at so many plasmid maps and protocols! In reality, there are many shared components across viruses (AAV, lentivirus, etc.) and ...
In order to understand the complex wiring of the brain and the underpinnings of neurological disease, neuroscientists need to be able to probe cells and circuits without disrupting normal brain function. Chemogenetics has become a popular tool in the field as it provides a ...
