Viral Replication Quotes

The model of modern Western civilization is the virus: the pure bit of information, which turns its environment into endless reproductions of itself.

I wanted to be a genetic engineer. That was my goal in college. I wanted to figure out what the codon sequence was that causes replication in a cardio myopathic virus. That was my goal.

Viruses have to live somewhere. They can only replicate in living creatures. So, when the Ebola virus disappears between outbreaks, it has to be living in some reservoir host, presumably some species of animal.

We're shaking loose viruses and dislodging them from their natural ecological limitations, places where they aren't very abundant and have competition, even within a single animal. We introduce them into a new, rich habitat called the human population, where they can flourish more abundantly and cause more trouble.

If the structure that serves as a template (the gene or virus molecule) consists of, say, two parts, which are themselves complementary In structure, then each of these parts can serve as the mould for the production of a replica of the other part, and the complex of two complementary parts thus can serve as the mould for the production of duplicates of itself.

A virus has three purposes: to duplicate, to infiltrate and to spread from one host to the next. Ultimately, even a single virus can shut down an entire system.

The more cases of Ebola infection we have, the more chances there are for the virus to mutate in a particular way that adapts it well to living in humans, replicating in humans, and perhaps transmitting from human to human.

Computer viruses are alive.

In nature, disease-causing strains of avian influenza rarely spread far because the birds sicken and die before they can fly to spread it to others.

Physical studies of DNA had, of course, been under way for some years before analysis of virus particles began.

In my first publishable research, I obtained evidence that the replication of polio viral RNA engendered a multi-stranded intermediate, although my description of that intermediate proved flawed in its details.

What perhaps should receive more attention is the effect of the treatment on the virus.

But what has been pretty good about the coronaviruses in general is they keep their structural pieces very similar. What do I mean by that? There's certain - the outer coat, the envelope, and the inside part of the virus has stayed very constant.

Most of the infections linked to human cancers are common in human populations; they are ubiquitous. They were present during the whole human evolution process.

Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.

The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted. It mutates furiously, it has decoys to evade the immune system, it attacks the very cells that are trying to fight it, and it quickly hides itself in your genome.

The problem with Ebola is that it makes mistakes while it copies itself. The mistakes are actually good for Ebola because they help Ebola change, and as a result of this, as it jumps from one human body to the next, roughly half the time, it's got a mutation.

There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.

Changes... can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, cut it up, scramble it - it will reassemble in the same form.