Research news on viruses

Viruses are acellular infectious agents that depend entirely on host cellular machinery for replication and are therefore studied as a central topic in microbiology, virology, and infectious disease research. They consist minimally of a nucleic acid genome (DNA or RNA, single- or double-stranded, linear or circular) enclosed in a protein capsid, and in many cases a host-derived lipid envelope containing viral glycoproteins. Viral classification and research focus on genome organization, replication strategies, host range, tropism, mechanisms of cell entry and egress, immune evasion, and evolutionary dynamics, as well as their roles in pathogenesis, horizontal gene transfer, and biotechnology applications such as vectors and phage therapy.