Influenza A Virus: Is Virulence Attributable to Virulence Factors?

Influenza A viruses continue to be of enormous interest to biomedical researchers and clinicians alike.  In addition to the annual influenza epidemics, which have been inferred to cause substantial excess mortality, there is the ever-present threat of a global...

A Medical Application of Phylogenetic Analysis

A couple of months ago, my institution hosted a one-day symposium on phylogenetics. One of the speakers was John Avise, a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the individual generally credited with originating the field of phylogeography. His talk and those...

Phenotypic noise and the evolution of virulence

Commentary on: M. Ackermann, B. Stecher, N. E. Freed, P. Songhet, W.-D. Hardt, and M. Doebeli (2008) Self-destructive cooperation mediated by phenotype noise. Nature 454:987-9 One of the most exciting developments in microbial population biology over the past few...