Apr
05
Perhaps you missed it but late last week the 3.8Å resolution structure of the mature Zika virus as determined by cryo-electron microscopy was published in Science by groups at Purdue University and NIAID. I knew it was coming since I emailed Dr. Rossman Feb 24 with our ‘homology models’ paper submitted to F1000Research and had …
Mar
07
This morning The Wall Street Journal had the Zika virus vaccine efforts on the front page with comments suggesting a vaccine is 18 months away. In section B the headline was “hunt is on for a Zika Vaccine”. About 90% of the space was dedicated to describing all the companies chasing vaccines. Then almost as …
Feb
24
After a busy few weeks of using every bit of spare time and engaging some great and very generous collaborators we now have the latest installment in the #ZikaOpen project submitted to F1000Research. The preprint is also posted on Figshare. The project kicked off after the illustrator John Liebler got in touch as he wanted …
Feb
19
Hunting for information on the Zika virus has revealed several insights for me, both of them point to areas that are obvious. 1. Researchers may have missed out by not reading anything older than a few years old and 2. for all the pronouncements on data sharing and open access, still publishers have not opened …
Feb
16
Late last week I was contacted by John Liebler a science and medicine illustrator and he had seen the Zika glycoprotein E homology model and wanted to use it to produce an image of the virus. After reading up on flaviviruses it appeared to me that the original model was of the trimer and not …
Feb
11
What gets your heart beating fast? For some it is making science progress as fast as they can because life is too short. For me it gets into something totally new and seeing how quickly you can contribute and collaborate with others. How fast can we bring scientists together to do something? I would argue …
Feb
03
Today a nice collaboration has lead to submission of an opinion article to F1000Research. As an experiment I have posted the manuscript and some of the supplemental data online at FigShare. I hope to add more as time permits. This is definitely a work in progress. This project has consumed lots of time from all …
Jan
29
Following my last post / plea I have been a little preoccupied trying to find scientists that could : 1. contribute to an open Zika virus drug discovery effort 2. Help write a perspective that summarizes potential drug discovery efforts . Fortunately several folks connected by email or twitter to offer ideas and assistance. I …
Jan
26
I have been following the news on the Zika virus over the last few weeks as it has spread with travelers returning from trips and women giving birth to children with microcephaly. Along with it is a spreading underlying fear of where it will lead. Its not so long ago that Ebola, was grabbing headlines. …
