Annual Conference on Bacterial, Viral and Infectious Diseases

As their name suggest, giant viruses are big — as big as bacteria, and more than twice the size of typical viruses. The genome of Giant viruses are more complex than the genomes of simple microbes, and many of these genes of Giant viruses code for proteins that is found only in giant viruses. These so called orphan genes puzzled scientists about where they come from. In three new species of Pandora viruses, a family of giant viruses, it was found out that these genes originated in the viruses themselves. The giant viruses were like factories which churned out novel genes and proteins. However, the origin and purpose of this prolific gene creation is still a mystery. There are four known  giant virus families discovered till date: Molli virus, Mega virus, Pitho virus and Pandora virus. Recently researchers have identified three new members of Pandora virus from samples collected in France, New Caledonia and Australia. And these three new members of Pandora viruses ...

A key stage in infection by Neisseria meningitis, a human pathogen to be blamed for meningitis in infants and young adults was unravelled by a group of scientists at the Pasteur Institute. The progression of the infection was facilitated and aggravated by the blood aggregates formed in the blood vessel. Though treatment is run quickly, the death rate due to meningococcal infections remains terribly high. Human meningococcal infectious disease is characterised by the accumulation of bacteria in blood vessels, that fully top off with bacterium. However the mechanisms that govern the formation of those aggregates and also the impact of the process is still unknown. A syndicate of scientists, intrigued by this formation of intravascular aggregates, started to know this stage of infection, particularly its underlying physical basis. Their findings discovered that "the microorganism aggregates fashioned by Neisseria meningitidis appeared to be a thick liquid, like that of honey. Ana...