Power of Mighty Viruses

Introduction

a virus is a tiny infectious particle that can reproduce only by infecting a host cell. Viruses "commandeer" the host cell and use it as a resource to make more viruses, basically reprogramming it to become a virus factory because they can't reproduce by themselves without a host. they are basically just packages of nucleic acid and protein.

 


Viruses have genetic variation and can evolve. So, even though they don't meet the definition of life, viruses seem to be in a questionable zone! Scientists estimate that there are roughly 1031 viruses at any given moment. That's one with 31 zeroes after it! They think that every kind of living organism is probably hosting at least one virus!

What can a virus do?


Viruses are tiny. we cannot see them with naked eyes. The effect of viruses is powerful like nuclear weapons. Due to pandemic diseases, nearly 200-300 million people died and billions of lives are saved by vaccination.

Positive Aspects:


Bacterial viruses are a powerful tool that is used in biochemical and genetic research. Bacterial viruses have played a crucial role in the development of molecular cell biology. thousands of different bacteriophages have been isolated: Many of these are particularly well studied of specific biochemical or genetic events.

Viruses in Medical Science

  • viruses are being used as vectors or carriers that take the required material for the treatment of a disease to various target cells.
  • viruses are also used in vaccines against cowpox, polio, measles, chickenpox, etc.
  • Bacteriophages are highly specific viruses that can target, infect, and destroy pathogenic bacteria.
  • Vaccines for hepatitis B and those for human papillomavirus protect against liver and cervical cancer respectively.

 Viruses in Pest control


viruses can also be used to control damaging pests. traditionally this has been used in agriculture but the application exists in the control of agents important to human health as well.


Viruses in Weapons and Biological Warfare:


viruses are tiny but have the capacity to cause death and devastation to a large population in epidemic and pandemic. This has led to the concern those viruses could be used for biological warfare.

Negative Aspects:


hardly any year passes by without a viral disease catching public attention. Recently the Zika virus and Ebola virus were on the run, both as an epidemic and in the media. Viruses influence lives in many respects.

cholera, bubonic plague, smallpox, and influenza are some of the most brutal killers in human history and outbreaks of these diseases across international borders, are properly defined as a pandemic, especially influenza and smallpox, which throughout history, has killed 300-500 million people in its 12000 years of existence.

Pandemic diseases in history:

 

 Recent Researches on viruses:


Polio vaccination causes more infection than wild Nigeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, and Angola have experienced nine new cases of polio caused by the live virus in oral polio vaccines that have mutated into infectious form, according to statistics released in November 2019 by the WHO.

Viruses used to beat cancer:


We've long known that viruses can target cancers in our bodies. Now thanks to gene editing,
we're using them as tumor search and destroy agents and getting our immune system to join the fight too.

Researchers Discover New family of viruses


The Redondo viruses, named for their circular DNA inhabit the human respiratory tract and may be linked to disease.


References:

- Wikipedia
- Khanacademy.com
- mphonline.org
- Nature Microbiology (nature.com)


Dhruv Valand
(D4ever)

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