The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of biology.

A tiny, four-fingered "hand" folded from a single piece of DNA can pick up the virus that causes COVID-19 for highly sensitive rapid detection and can even block viral particles from entering cells to ...

A giant DNA virus pulled from a Japanese freshwater pond is forcing scientists to rethink how complex cells first acquired their defining feature: the nucleus. Named ushikuvirus, the newly ...

Around 8 percent of human DNA is made up of genetic sequences acquired from ancient viruses. These sequences, known as human endogenous retroviruses (or Hervs), date back hundreds of thousands to ...

New research reveals that triggering a cell’s DNA damage response could be a promising avenue for developing novel treatments against several rare but devastating viruses for which no antiviral ...

Scientists at the University of Vienna, Austria, have screened great ape specimens obtained from natural history museums to identify DNA viruses. This groundbreaking study provides unique insights ...

CRISPR-Cas9 is a customizable tool that lets scientists cut and insert small pieces of DNA at precise areas along a DNA strand. This lets scientists study genes in a specific, targeted way. (NHGRI via ...

The COVID-19 pandemic brought messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines to the forefront of global health care. After their clinical trial stages, the first COVID-19 mRNA vaccine was administered on 8 December ...

Circular single-stranded DNA viruses represent a diverse group of pathogens that possess a covalently closed, circular single-stranded DNA genome. Their small genomes belie a sophisticated replication ...

Illinois researchers developed a nanorobotic hand made of DNA that can grab viruses for detection or inhibition. In this artist’s rendering, three “NanoGripper” hands wrap around a COVID-19 virus.