Viruses and Evolution – Viruses First? A Personal Perspective

Computer Viruses: A Global Perspective

Emerging Viruses: The Evolution of Viruses and Viral Diseases

Evolution of Foamy Viruses:

Recent evidence indicates that foamy viruses (FVs) are the oldest retroviruses (RVs) that we know and coevolved with their hosts for several hundred million years. This coevolution may have contributed to the non-pathogenicity of FVs, an important factor in development of foamy viral vectors in gene therapy. However, various questions on the molecular evolution of FVs remain still unanswered. T...

Evolution of viruses and cells: do we need a fourth domain of life to explain the origin of eukaryotes?

The recent discovery of diverse very large viruses, such as the mimivirus, has fostered a profusion of hypotheses positing that these viruses define a new domain of life together with the three cellular ones (Archaea, Bacteria and Eucarya). It has also been speculated that they have played a key role in the origin of eukaryotes as donors of important genes or even as the structures at the origi...

RNA viruses – evolution in action

remain unreconciled with frequent anthropomorphic interpretations of their own work. To others, the theory of evolution is additionally difficult to comprehend and win universal acceptance because it operates so slowly and imponderably on the most important objects of study, ourselves and the primates from whom we descend. With RNA viruses, however, we have the opportunity to observe evolution ...