Molecule of the Week: Tamiflu
Okay, so I’m officially geeking out with a new idea for a regular blog feature. But here it is, Molecule of the Week! What you see before you is a ball and stick model of oseltamivir, the drug Tamiflu, your friendly neighborhood antiviral drug for influenza, including H1N1. How does this bad boy work? Flu [...]
Weekly Roundup: more interesting (swine) flu science
As swine flu concern seems to be simmering down a little, I want to highlight some of the interesting stories about science that should make a difference in infectious disease science, whether H1N1 turns out to be the next dangerous pandemic or not. 1. Why is the flu seasonal? Honestly, I was thinking about this [...]
Swine flu or H1N1: behind the virus pictures
Looking more closely at the some of the coverage of swine flu, I recognized the (probable) handiwork of a CDC researcher from a lecture I covered recently at the New York Academy of Sciences about biological imaging. Amazingly this technology (negative stained transmission electron micrograhs) actually dates back to the 1950s, but it’s fast and [...]
