Introduction to Viruses

One fine day, the teacher wrote "Virus" on the whiteboard. Suddenly...

Student: Teacher, what virus are you talking about? Computer Virus?

*Everyone in the class laughed*

Teacher: No my child. This virus that i'm talking about is not a computer virus. Its just your normal virus that causes tons and tons of infection across the world. From your recent H1N1 to the SARS outbreak.

All the students: Ohhhhhhh~

Student: So what's a virus?

A very good question indeed by one of the students. So what in the world is a virus? A virus, as we all know infects a human which causes its body system to weaken or malfunction. It is, in other words, a small infectious agent that can only replicates upon attaching itself to a host; the human.

How a virus would normally look like.

The discovery of virus was by a Dutch Microbiologist and Botanist, Martinus Willem Beijerinck. It was just a normal day for Martinus, doing his filtration experiment in 1898 on tobacco mosaic disease. He was trying to prove that there is an agent smaller than a bacteria. Hence, he named that new pathogen, virus. The proper term for studying viruses is called Virology.

Through his findings, we can clearly understand that viruses are smaller than bacteria.

So what's in/on the virus? Well basically, what you can find in a virus are 3 important things.

• DNA or RNA
• Long molecules that contains genetic information
• Protein coat that protects the genetics or an envelop of fats that surrounds the virus when outside a cell.

Without this 3 things, infecting a human is like injecting more blood into a human; nothing will happen.

As we all know, a virus requires a host in order for it to replicate itself. But we don't know what happens before, during or after this replication. As we go along, we will understand further what happens to the virus itself. We would also talked about examples of recent virus discoveries.

Till then, stay in tune.

Regards,

Faradilla

Karen

Khairul

Shobana

Thiviyan