Turning Off Hepatitis B Virus Without Cutting its DNA

Vincent Racaniello (0:00)

This Week in Virology, the podcast about viruses, the kind that make you sick.

From MicrobeTV, this is TWiV, This Week in Virology, episode 1367, recorded on October 16th, 2026 I'm Vincent Racaniello, and you're listening to the podcast All About Viruses. Joining me today from Austin, Texas, Rich Condit.

Rich Condit (0:32)

Hi there. It's been a while. It's been so long that I am slow in getting up the weather report, but I can tell you that we got a cold front coming through. So it's like, so here it is, 67 degrees, which is probably today's high, and it's going down to something like 54 overnight. So we're finally, I think, out of the work though. And it's really windy. And tonight, my grandson, who plays in the high school band, I'm gonna go to their performance and they have a color guard that Harper used to be in.

She's now off to college. That they, their big deal at right is waving flags and tossing them in the air and that kind of stuff. And they got like 25 mile an hour winds tonight. So they're gonna have a challenge. Oh yeah, that's gonna be hard. Yeah.

Vincent Racaniello (1:30)

That's gonna be hard. They'll have to be picking them up.

Rich Condit (1:34)

I'm sure they got contingency plans.

Vincent Racaniello (1:37)

Yes, we'll modify. Here it's 22 and cloudy. It's been pretty mild lately after a little bit of a cold spell.

Also joining me today from Madison, New Jersey, Brianne Barker.

Brianne Barker (1:49)

Hi, it's great to be here. It is also 22 Celsius, 72 Fahrenheit here, which may be the only times ever that it's been warmer in Madison than in Austin.

Very cloudy, but a good day to do a podcast.

Vincent Racaniello (2:05)

From Ann Arbor, Michigan. I was going to say Madison again. From Ann Arbor, Michigan, Kathy Spindler.

Kathy Spindler (2:11)

Hi, everybody. Here it's 56 Fahrenheit, which is 13 Celsius.

That's a little bit windy, drizzly right now, and so the sky is definitely gray.

Vincent Racaniello (2:21)

Actually, all three of you I haven't seen in a bit.

Rich Condit (2:25)

I was just thinking it's great to be back and see all you guys again.

Vincent Racaniello (2:28)

I have seen Alan, I have seen Angela, and then a couple of weeks ago, Brianne was the last one.

Kathy, you're still in your office. Rich and Kathy have been AWOL.

Rich Condit (2:39)

Yeah, I've been AWOL. It's true.

Brianne Barker (2:41)

Good to see you back, Rich.

Vincent Racaniello (2:43)

Absolutely.

Rich Condit (2:44)

Actually, it's not true.

Vincent Racaniello (2:45)

You can do whatever you want. There's no such AWOL on TWiV. That's why we have like six people, right? So eventually, we'll get two or three.

Rich Condit (2:52)

It all works out.

Vincent Racaniello (2:53)

It all works out. You know, on TWiN, we're now down to two people.

Rich Condit (2:58)

Is that right?

Vincent Racaniello (2:59)

So last year, Jason Shepard left, and now Vivian decided to leave after five and a half years.

Rich Condit (3:09)

How often does TWiN drop?

Vincent Racaniello (3:11)

It's once a month.

But I mean, I always wanted to get another senior person to replace Jason, and I have someone in mind, so I will pursue that. But in the meantime, Tim is very good. He knows what he's talking about, and he likes explaining things. He's very clear. So we had Jason back, actually, to visit a couple of weeks ago. He had a very interesting new paper in, I forgot what journal, but it's about his favorite protein arc, which is a retroviral gag protein that forms capsids, and he thinks is involved in neurotransmission. It looks like it's ferrying tau from neuron to neuron now, right? Especially, so phosphorylated tau moves around, right? And that's bad. That's what you see in Alzheimer's and so forth. So that was interesting to have him back. OK, the news this week is Helen Branswell has passed away, 69 years old. She most recently was writing for Statin. She was always a good writer, clarity, and got her facts right and so forth. And I always wondered what she started out as. And as I'm reading her column here, and yeah, she was a literature major and then started doing journalism and then got interested in science. She did appeal to her and became a science writer. So, but she was very good. She understood things and wrote clearly. So we're gonna lose a good science writer.

Kathy Spindler (4:41)

Yeah, the testimonies were good because they all commented on how they looked forward to the questions that she had. She was well prepared and she asked the key questions.