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.
Last year, a ten-month-old baby in the US was the first person in the world to have their rare genetic disease effectively cured through the use of CRISPR gene editing technology. But the rollout of CRISPR across a wide range ...
Biotechnology
Jan 26, 2026
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Some time around 1683, amateur Dutch scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek scraped the plaque from between his teeth and peered at it through a home-made microscope.
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 20, 2026
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Bacteriophages have been used therapeutically to treat infectious bacterial diseases for over a century. As antibiotic-resistant infections increasingly threaten public health, interest in bacteriophages as therapeutics has ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 19, 2026
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A recent study shows that viruses in wild bees are closely linked to the flowers they visit and the availability of floral resources across the landscape. Researchers found that certain floral communities increase the likelihood ...
Plants & Animals
Jan 15, 2026
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Disinfecting drinking water prevents the spread of deadly waterborne diseases by killing infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses and parasites. Without disinfection, even clear-looking water can carry pathogens that can ...
Environment
Jan 15, 2026
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In a new study, terrestrial bacteria-infecting viruses were still able to infect their E. coli hosts in near-weightless "microgravity" conditions aboard the International Space Station, but the dynamics of virus-bacteria ...
Astrobiology
Jan 13, 2026
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Newly published interdisciplinary research led by the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, and University of Maryland shows that viral infection of blue-green algae in the ocean stimulates productivity in the ecosystem and ...
Ecology
Jan 12, 2026
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An international team of scientists has analyzed the ongoing colonization by two retroviruses of the germline of koalas and resulting deaths from cancer in multi-generational pedigrees of over 100 koalas in US and European ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 12, 2026
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A research team led by Václav Vopálenský and Martin Pospíšek from the Faculty of Science, Charles University, has discovered a surprising way in which the vaccinia virus handles its genetic messages.
Cell & Microbiology
Jan 12, 2026
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Plant viruses pose a serious and ongoing threat to global agriculture in tropical to temperate regions. Among the most damaging are begomoviruses, a group of DNA viruses spread by whiteflies that infect many important food ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Jan 9, 2026
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