What Are Viruses And How Do We Work With Them?

The names of some viruses are instantly recognisable. The impact on an individual, a family, a community, and beyond, can be devastating. Disease, serious illness, and even death. Others have not been in the spotlight so much in recent years but have been incredible threats to humans and humanity. However, most recent COVID-19 pandemic, has shone a spotlight again on viruses and the fragility of our defences against, existing threats that are constantly mutating, adapting and evolving let alone against newly emerging threats.

How do viruses replicate and spread? If we want to understand the fundamental characteristics of viruses, so that we can find ways to tackle them, we need to know how viruses replicate and spread. In this module, we are going to look at virus replication and spread and introduce some terms around these concepts.

To be able to study viruses, we need to be able to isolate and then produce viruses using a process from horticulture called propagation. We can then use cells cultivated in mass quantities using laboratory techniques and pass the isolated virus cells through the cultivated cells to study the effects of the virus in a process called passaging.

There was a lot in the media about variants and mutations during the COVID-19 pandemic. This week, we will look at virus mutation, their types and consequences, and the evolution of novel viruses through reassortment, recombination, and adaptation.

Conventional virus genetics talks about the range of genotypes, range of phenotypes, stability and quasispecies. Traditional genetic analysis often involves associating observable phenotypes with genotypes, then mapping the mutations causing those genotypes. In this module, we will look at viral genetics - the approaches used in conventional virus genetics, and the limitations of conventional virus genetics.