The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of biology.

A giant DNA virus pulled from a Japanese freshwater pond is forcing scientists to rethink how complex cells first acquired their defining feature: the nucleus. Named ushikuvirus, the newly ...

Genetics tools have advanced significantly in recent decades, and have allowed scientist to sequence all of the genetic ...

Herpes simplex virus partially liquefies the tightly packed, gel-like interior of human cell nuclei to copy itself faster, a new study shows. The research centers on how the nucleus of each human cell ...

The cold sore-causing Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV-1) hijacks human cells and reconfigures its DNA within just an hour after infection, according to a new study that may help tackle the pathogen. Viruses ...

In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma ...

New research reveals that triggering a cell’s DNA damage response could be a promising avenue for developing novel treatments against several rare but devastating viruses for which no antiviral ...

A tiny, four-fingered "hand" folded from a single piece of DNA can pick up the virus that causes COVID-19 for highly sensitive rapid detection and can even block viral particles from entering cells to ...

Circular single-stranded DNA viruses represent a diverse group of pathogens that possess a covalently closed, circular single-stranded DNA genome. Their small genomes belie a sophisticated replication ...

Around 8 percent of human DNA is made up of genetic sequences acquired from ancient viruses. These sequences, known as human endogenous retroviruses (or Hervs), date back hundreds of thousands to ...