Frank Ryan's Blog - Posts Tagged "virus-x"

I've written both popular books and many scientific papers on the contribution of endogenous retroviruses to human evolution. I'm pleased to report a new paper in which I acted as co-author with some leading figures in Sweden who are currently working on the Human Proteome.

More at www.fprbooks.com.

The new paper, which looks at the contribution of viral loci - in other words whole viral genomes that have inserted into and become a working part of the human chromosomes - to human proteins that play a physiological role in many different human tissues. They may also play a role in some important human diseases.

This type of research is relatively new with much that still needs to be carefully evaluated.

I teach this at Sheffield University Medical School and later this year will be giving a plenary lecture and other teaching to biology PhD students for the annual get together of the PhD group of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology.

I don't want to befuddle non-scientific visitors but the paper can be found here:

http://jrs.sagepub.com/content/early/...

Ordinary visitors who want to know more can get in touch with me. Scientific readers will easily get hold of the paper which is freely available on-line. I believe it's important not because of my contribution but because my Swedish colleagues have worked out a new methodology that may change the way we look at certain aspects of the human genome.

I would love to explain further. The importance applies to MS but may apply further. All you have to do is to ask.

Darwin's Blind Spot: Evolution Beyond Natural Selection

Virolution

I'd like to thank those people who have read this book, and Virus X before it. I'm pleased to report that the central thesis of both books, the concepts of viral symbiosis and its contribution to holobiontic genomic evolution, has been confirmed by some important new research by colleagues in Sweden involved in the prestigious Human Proteome Project. They did me the honour of including me in a keynote paper on the expression of viral genes in multiple human tissues - more at www.fprbooks.com.

I'm also pleased to inform those who might be interested that I am currently writing a sequel to Virolution that will be published reasonably soon by HarperCollins, who published both the previous books.

It's an exciting and stimulating challenge. I shall keep readers informed on Goodreads.

Virolution

This is just to notify readers that Virus X, the book in which I began to take a novel look at viruses and their potential role in the evolution of their unwitting hosts for the first time, is now available for purchase at low cost on kindle. So also is the related book that followed it, Darwin's Blind Spot. The amazing thing is that between them the kindles have already been bought by readers on the amazon sites in seven different countries.

Encouraged by this I am placing links to all the amazons on the individual book pages on my website www.fprbooks.com so readers can easily find the new kindles.

Find Virus X on amazon.co.uk

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0...

Find it on amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B015...

Virus X

A viral disease new to humanity has emerged in the Middle East and is potentially lethal. It's called the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus, or MERS-CoV. It causes severe respiratory disease, with coughing, high temperature and shortness of breath - the sort of symptoms we see in pneumonia. So far, all cases of MERS have been linked through travel to or residence in countries in and near the Arabian Peninsula. The largest known outbreak of MERS outside the Arabian Peninsula occurred in the Republic of Korea in 2015. The outbreak was associated with a traveller returning from the Arabian Peninsula.

There is no vaccine to date and no specific treatment, though no doubt trials will be taking place of antiviral drugs. Otherwise patients are treated by isolation and intensive therapy support. So far some three out of four cases have resulted in death.

The CDC has issued a summary that can be found here:

http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/mers/a...

I travelled extensively to research emerging viruses back in the 1990s and wrote a book, Virus X, on this theme which was an Amazon.com bestseller. The emergence of the MERS-CoV is illustrative that the problem hasn't changed or gone away. This is why I recently released the book as a kindle.

Virus X