virus: Quick Facts

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Last updated

Nov. 12, 2026

News •

Scientists find deadly virus DNA hidden in 1,000-year-old manuscripts • Nov. 11, 2026, 7:34 AM ET (Science Daily)

Scientists discover a bacterial defense so strange they thought it was broken • Oct. 31, 2026, 6:40 AM ET (Science Daily)

Start-Up Claims to Use A.I.-Created Viruses to Treat a Patient • Oct. 20, 2026, 8:07 AM ET (New York Times)

Facts

Also Known As	Virales

Photos and Videos

Close-up illustration of the Ebola virus, showing a single, long, filamentous strand with looped ends against a dark background.

Tobacco mosaic virus

virus icosahedron

A step-by-step diagram shows viruses attaching to and entering a body cell, releasing their genetic material, taking over the cell's machinery to produce new viruses, and releasing them to infect other cells.

Labeled diagram of the SARS-CoV-2 virus shows its structure with spike glycoproteins on the outer surface, membrane and envelope proteins, and internal nucleoprotein and genomic RNA.

diagram of the influenza virus

Diagram showing a microscope with a magnified view of a large, rod-shaped bacterium next to a much smaller, round virus particle.

Discover how a benign bacterial virus can be employed to enhance the performance of lithium-oxygen storage batteries

Dissect the anatomy of icosahedral, rod-shaped, and bacteriophage virus structures in electron micrographs

Study how bacteriophages replicate by injecting nucleic acid into a bacteria cell to create virions

How bacteria exchange genetic information

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Topics

animal virus oncogenic virus slow virus bacteriophage coronavirus hantavirus papillomavirus retrovirus herpesvirus hepadnavirus plankton prokaryote Biological soil crust Extremophile eukaryote benthos nekton multicellular organism plant fungus

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Key People

Peyton Rous.

Peyton Rous

American pathologist

Martinus W. Beijerinck

Martinus W. Beijerinck

Dutch microbiologist and botanist

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Albert Bruce Sabin

American physician and microbiologist

Baruch S. Blumberg, 1976.

Baruch S. Blumberg

American physician

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Dmitry Ivanovsky

Russian microbiologist

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Ralph Walter Graystone Wyckoff

American chemist

Klug, Aaron

Aaron Klug

Lithuanian-born British chemist

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Heinz L. Fraenkel-Conrat

American biochemist

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Thomas Milton Rivers

American virologist

Wendell Stanley, 1970

Wendell Meredith Stanley

American biochemist

Benzer, Seymour

Seymour Benzer

American scientist

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E.W. Goodpasture

American pathologist

Adult Caucasian woman with hand on her face as if in pain. lockjaw, toothache, healthcare and medicine, human jaw bone, female

Viruses, Bacteria, and Diseases