COMMENTS

  1. Origin of Viruses

    The evolutionary history of viruses represents a fascinating, ... V. R. A hypothesis for DNA viruses as the origin of eukaryotic replication proteins. Journal of Virology 74, 7079-7084 (2000).

  2. Introduction to Virus Origins and Their Role in Biological Evolution

    Box 1.3. Viruses are strictly intracellular and potentially pathogenic entities with an infectious phase and (1) possessing one type of nucleic acid, (2) multiplying in the form of their genetic material, (3) unable to grow and to undergo binary fission, and (4) devoid of a Lipmann system ( Lwoff, 1957 ).

  3. History of Virus

    The viruses were thought to be composed of mobile genetic elements. Mobile genetic elements are pieces of the genome that have the ability to move, i.e., they can exit from one cell and enter another. This origin theory can be linked to retrotransposons which are a common occurrence in eukaryotes. Retrotransposons are also mobile genetic ...

  4. Introduction to virus origins and their role in biological evolution

    The theories of the origin of life on Earth shed light on the possible origin of primitive viruses or virus-like genetic elements in our biosphere. Some features of present-day viruses, notably error-prone replication, might be a consequence of the selective forces that mediated their ancestral origin.

  5. History of Viruses

    Viruses were first discovered after the development of a porcelain filter—the Chamberland-Pasteur filter—that could remove all bacteria visible in the microscope from any liquid sample. In 1886, Adolph Meyer demonstrated that a disease of tobacco plants— tobacco mosaic disease —could be transferred from a diseased plant to a healthy one ...

  6. Essay on Viruses

    ADVERTISEMENTS: In this essay we will discuss about Viruses. After reading this essay you will learn about:- 1. Meaning of Viruses 2. Origin of Viruses 3. Features 4. Early Development of Virology 5. Classification 6. Structural Organisation 7. Chemistry 8. Assay 9. Biological Status 10. Cultivation 11. Transmission. Contents: Essay on the Meaning of Viruses […]

  7. Virus

    virus, infectious agent of small size and simple composition that can multiply only in living cells of animals, plants, or bacteria.The name is from a Latin word meaning "slimy liquid" or "poison.". The earliest indications of the biological nature of viruses came from studies in 1892 by the Russian scientist Dmitry I. Ivanovsky and in 1898 by the Dutch scientist Martinus W. Beijerinck.

  8. Investigating the Concept and Origin of Viruses

    Viruses replicate using the macromolecular machinery of other biological entities. This prong establishes absolute parasitism, which is a hallmark of viruses and virus-like genetic elements. Another feature of viruses is the ability to encapsulate and disseminate genomes in metabolically inert structures.

  9. Virus Origins and the Origin of Life

    8.6 Conclusion. Ever since their discovery over a century ago, viruses have been hypothesized to play a role in the origin of life. The study of virology and the origin of life have had a remarkable history with both fields sharing and exchanging ideas such as the quasispecies model and virus-first hypothesis.

  10. Ancient or New

    Abstract. The origin of viruses is ancient and the details are uncertain. Viruses may have preceded cellular life, may have arisen in parallel with cells, or maybe evolved from early cellular life forms. This chapter will explore the various hypotheses for viral origins and the evidence for and against each hypothesis.

  11. (PDF) Virals: an Essay on VIRUSES: The History and Threats of Viruses

    This essay is designed to investigate the mystery of the virus: the smallest form of organic material that is able to replicate itself by following a parasitic approach that needs an external ...

  12. Investigating the Concept and Origin of Viruses

    The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has piqued public interest in the properties, evolution, and emergence of viruses. Here, we discuss how these basic questions have surprisingly remained disputed despite being increasingly within the reach of scientific analysis. We review recent data-driven efforts that shed light into the origin and evolution of viruses and explain factors that resist the ...

  13. The origin and evolution of viruses inferred from fold ...

    The canonical frameworks of viral evolution describe viruses as cellular predecessors, reduced forms of cells, or entities that escaped cellular control. The discovery of giant viruses has changed these standard paradigms. Their genetic, proteomic and structural complexities resemble those of cells, prompting a redefinition and reclassification of viruses. In a previous genome-wide analysis of ...

  14. Viruses

    The history of virology, which is marked by transformative breakthroughs, spans microbiology, biochemistry, genetics, and molecular biology. From the development of Jenner's smallpox vaccine in 1796 to 20th-century innovations such as ultrafiltration and electron microscopy, the field of virology has undergone significant development. In 1898, Beijerinck laid the conceptual foundation for ...

  15. Investigating the Concept and Origin of Viruses

    The origin and early evolution of viruses impacts the validity of deep taxonomic ranks but remains an unsettled problem in biology. While three general scenarios of origin have been proposed over ...

  16. The origin of viruses and their possible roles in major evolutionary

    Abstract. Viruses infecting cells from the three domains of life, Archaea, Bacteria and Eukarya, share homologous features, suggesting that viruses originated very early in the evolution of life. The three current hypotheses for virus origin, e.g. the virus first, the escape and the reduction hypotheses are revisited in this new framework.

  17. Origin of COVID-19

    In March 2023, an international team of virus experts from University of Arizona, Scripps Research Institute, and University of Sydney found genetic evidence that COVID-19 may have originated from the illegal trade of infected raccoon dogs in Wuhan, China, supporting the zoonotic transmission scenario.

  18. COVID-19 Pandemic

    The outbreak of the infectious respiratory disease known as COVID-19 triggered one of the deadliest pandemics in modern history. COVID-19 claimed nearly 7 million lives worldwide. In the United ...

  19. Writing the history of virology in the twentieth century: Discovery

    Concerned with the study of viruses and the diseases they cause, virology is now a well-established scientific discipline. Whereas aspects of its history from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century have often been recounted through a number of detailed case studies, few general discussions of the historiography of virology have been offered.

  20. History and Impact of Virology

    A Brief History of Virology. The history of virology can be divided into a number of eras: these span (1) the discovery of viruses as entities distinct from other disease-causing pathogens, (2) the association of many major human diseases with causative viruses, (3) the development of methods for virus isolation and characterization, (4) the ...

  21. COVID origin mystery persists: Here are arguments for and against

    The origin of the Covid virus remains the pandemic's biggest mystery. ... A recent Times Opinion essay — by Alina Chan, a biologist — refocused attention on the issue by making the case for ...

  22. The Melissa Virus: Origins and Impact

    There is an entire security software industry focused on preventing and mitigating the effects of malware. This paper will discuss the origins of malware and its impact on organizations throughout the history of the internet. The Melissa Virus: Origins and Impact. Today's internet is fraught with dangerous software.

  23. Opinion

    Dr. Chan makes a case for a laboratory origin of Covid-19. Richly illustrated with animated graphics online, the text proposes five main arguments to accuse a team led by Dr. Shi Zhengli, a ...

  24. (PDF) The Origins of HIV

    The origin of HIV has not been clearly understood [19], with wide speculation that includes its evolution from the simian immunodeficiency virus [20]. HIV is the virus that can lead to AIDS ...

  25. On the Origin of Cells and Viruses

    Apparently, it was first proposed by Felix d'Herelle, the discoverer of bacteriophages 60 and was incorporated and developed by J. B. S. Haldane in his classic 1928 essay on the origin of life. 61 Haldane came up with the striking speculation that the first self‐reproducing agents were viruses or virus‐like agents and that a virus stage ...

  26. Infectious H5N1 Influenza Virus in Raw Milk Rapidly Declines with Heat

    The amount of infectious H5N1 influenza viruses in raw milk rapidly declined with heat treatment in laboratory research conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health. However, small, detectable amounts of infectious virus remained in raw milk samples with high virus levels when treated at 72 degrees ...

  27. Origin and spread of malaria

    Researchers have reconstructed the evolutionary history and global spread of malaria over the past 5,500 years, identifying trade, warfare, and colonialism as major catalysts for its dispersal.