All About Viruses Pt. 1 | Learn With Me 5

Today’s post comes from Preksha Naik

Viruses are the ultimate parasites, an organism that lives on another host organism and causes harm to the host. By itself, a virus is inert and cannot reproduce. But, by hijacking its way into a host cell, it can reproduce abundantly.

A virus is simply some genetic material surrounded by a protective protein coat called a capsid. Occasionally, the virus also has a fatty membrane that protects it. (Side note: this is why soap works so well against the coronavirus because it disrupts this fatty membrane). A virus makes its way into a host cell by latching on to the receptors on the outside of the cell.

Once inside the cell, the virus hijacks the cell’s replication mechanism and uses it to reproduce copies of itself. The virus copies eventually burst out of the cell and destroy the cell (in a process called lysis). The new copies find their way to new host cells.

Each virus is slightly different. Although there are millions of different types, only 5000 or so have been well-studied. In the upcoming posts, we will try to answer a few more questions including:

1. How were viruses discovered?

2. How do viruses hijack the cell?

3. How does the body fight off the virus?

4. How do vaccines work?