by Gertrud U. Rey Image courtesy of Tagide deCarvalho/University of Maryland. Satellite viruses lack one or more of the elements needed to replicate, and thus they depend on co-infection with a helper virus that can provide the missing components. In a well-known example of a satellite-helper system, Hepatitis D virus ...

by Gertrud U. Rey On October 2nd, 2023, the Nobel Assembly at Karolinska Institutet announced the award of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine to Katalin Karikó and Drew Weissman. The decision was based on a series of fundamental discoveries that led to the development of the COVID-19 ...

by Gertrud U. Rey Remember the series of flashbacks in the ending of the movie “Contagion,” which reveal where the virus originated and how the pandemic started? As a tree is cut down, a colony of bats flies out of the tree to seek new shelter. While in flight over ...

by Gertrud U. Rey Did you know that eight percent of the human genome consists of DNA sequences that are derived from retroviruses? These “endogenous retroviruses” (ERVs) represent concrete evidence for retroviral infections that occurred in our ancestors. Although ERVs have no viral activity, an accumulating body of evidence suggests ...

by Gertrud U. Rey Have you ever wondered why some viruses circulate primarily in the winter and others are more prevalent in the summer? Although we don’t have a clear answer to this question, a combination of factors is likely responsible.   Work done in the field of respiratory viruses ...