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The Complex Social Lives of Viruses

New research has uncovered a social world full of cheating, cooperation, and other intrigues, suggesting that viruses make sense only as members of a community.

Carolina López, a virologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, believes that some viruses that look like they’re cheating may actually play a more benign role in viral societies. Carolina López hypothesized that while incomplete viruses may cheat inside a given cell, their overall effect — keeping infectious spread in check — may benefit the entire viral community.Photograph: Courtesy of Matt Miller / Washington University School Of Medicine In new research published in February, Christopher Brooke reported that an infected cell can produce hundreds of cryptic proteins that are encoded by incomplete viral genomes and new to science.Photograph: Courtesy of Fred Zwicky

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