Viruses can steal our genetic code to create new human-virus genes
Thursday, June 18, 2020 - 11:30
in Biology & Nature
Like a scene out of "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," a virus infects a host and converts it into a factory for making more copies of itself. Now researchers have shown that a large group of viruses, including the influenza viruses and other serious pathogens, steal genetic signals from their hosts to expand their own genomes.