viroLOGICAL

The first of a short series on viruses you might encounter while travelling: Pappataci fever is transmitted by sandflies and caused by viruses like Toscana virus, Naples virus, and Sicilian sandfly fever virus. Florian Krammer explains where the Italian name comes from, why these tiny 3-millimetre flies are poor fliers and therefore stay close to the ground, and why up to 25% of people in affected regions carry antibodies without ever having felt sick. Most infections are mild, but Toscana virus is neurotropic and can, in rare cases, cause meningitis or encephalitis. There's no vaccine and no treatment — insect...

In this episode of viroLOGICAL, Florian Krammer explains the Marburg virus, a filovirus closely related to Ebola that causes severe hemorrhagic fever. He discusses how the virus is structured, how it enters cells, how it is transmitted from animals and between humans, and why infection is associated with very high mortality.

This time it's not about a virus, but about one of the most exciting developments in modern medicine: therapeutic cancer vaccines based on mRNA. Florian Krammer explains the basic principle — how a patient's tumor is sequenced, how the mutated genes (so-called neoantigens) are turned into a personalized vaccine, and how that vaccine trains the immune system to recognize and destroy cancer cells.

A new tick-borne virus has just been detected in Austria for the first time and antibodies found in two people suggest it can infect humans here too. Florian Krammer explains what makes the Alongshan virus so unusual: it belongs to the Jingmen viruses, a group of segmented flaviviruses that are built almost like a hybrid between a flavivirus and an influenza virus.