![]() ![]() ![]() To read more about this early RNA world, read this article.). Viruses are unique in that some of them, called RNA viruses, use RNA as their genetic material (It is believed that viruses are remnants of an earlier world, in which RNA was used as the genetic information. All organisms in the animal kingdom have DNA as their genetic material. DNA has a relative called RNA, which serves as a moveable copy of the information in DNA and enables the production of proteins (To learn more about DNA, RNA, and proteins, see this Nobel Collection article about protein degradation and this Nobel Collection article about RNA splicing.). We can defend ourselves from some viruses using vaccination, and viruses that infect only humans are easier to handle.Īs you might know, DNA is the molecule that carries the genetic information in living systems. For example, some viruses can move between humans through sneezing or when someone touches a surface that was previously touched by an infected person. They spread by moving from one host to another. Viruses multiply extremely quickly-in as little as 20–30 min in bacteria and a few hours in mammals, including humans. This way, viruses “enslave” the host cell, tricking it into producing many copies of the virus. Viruses multiply by penetrating a host cell and inserting their genetic material, which the host then treats as its own. Every animal and bacterium has its own set of viruses (Image adapted from here). Viruses come in many different shapes.Viruses vary dramatically in their structures ( Figure 1), in how many species they can infect (whether they infect only a particular species or several species), and how dangerous they are to the organisms they infect, which are called the hosts. Maybe you have heard of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), which causes AIDS, or the Ebola virus. More than a million different viruses have been identified! You are probably familiar with some viruses, such as the influenza viruses that cause flu SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19 or varicella-zoster virus, which causes chickenpox. Viruses exist in uncountable numbers, and every living animal and even every bacterium has its own set of viruses. Viruses are tiny particles that infect cells and sometimes cause disease. ![]() Temin, for their discoveries concerning the interaction between tumor viruses and the genetic material of the cell. Professor David Baltimore won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1975, jointly with Prof. In this article, I will tell you about viruses, walk you through the discovery of reverse transcription, and describe some major implications of our findings in terms of improving or even saving many human lives. That was a great discovery that changed the prevailing way of thinking and had profound implications in the fields of biology, medicine, and biotechnology. When I focused on RNA viruses that are known to cause cancer, I discovered that they can make DNA from their RNA genomes, in a process called reverse transcription. In the beginning of my career I worked on RNA viruses, trying to understand their basic behaviors and processes. ![]() One of the most interesting features of viruses is that some of them contain RNA as their genetic material-all other known organisms use DNA. They are parasites that use the cells of other organisms, called hosts, to multiply, often causing disease to the host. Baltimore won numerous awards, including the NAS Award in Molecular Biology (1974), the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine (1975), the Sir Hans Krebs Medal (1997), the National Medal of Science (1999), and the Lasker Award (2021). During this period, he was also the president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. In 1968, he returned to MIT as a faculty member, where he presently works, and focused his research on the problem of cancer. Baltimore received his first independent position at the Salk Institute in La Jolla (California, United States). Then, he decided to change direction and studied animal viruses at Albert Einstein College of Medicine (New York, United States). Baltimore served as a postdoctoral fellow in biophysics at MIT. He then studied for 1 year at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT, Massachusetts, United States), and continued his studies at Rockefeller University (New York, United States), where he received his Ph.D. Baltimore earned his bachelor’s degree in chemistry at Swarthmore College (Pennsylvania, United States). David Baltimore is an American virologist and Judge Shirley Hufstedler Professor of biology at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech, California, United States). ![]()
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