A widespread bacteria called Wolbachia and a virus that it carries can cause sterility in male insects by hijacking their sperm, preventing them from fertilizing eggs of females that do not have ...

Viruses do not metabolize. They also don’t fit some other common criteria. They do not have cells. They cannot reproduce independently.

How Does Your Virus Grow? Researchers at Chiron made virology history in 1987 when they discovered the hepatitis C virus (HCV), not by isolating viral particles, but by cloning and sequencing its ...

The mosquito-borne Zika virus is known for causing microcephaly, a birth defect in which abnormal brain development results in a smaller-than-expected head.

For a pathogen to make us sick, it must overcome a lot. First it has to enter the body, bypassing natural barriers such as skin, mucus, cilia and stomach acid. Then it needs to reproduce; some ...

One virus can make millions of new viruses inside a human cell. Watch NPR's Robert Krulwich explain how that happens.

A new study published Jan. 13 in mBio shows that the Zika virus hijacks a host protein called ANKLE2, which happens to be important for brain development, to assist its own reproduction.