The Springer Index Of Viruses

The continuous growth of knowledege makes it very difficult for scientists to retrieve comprehensive and accurate data on viruses. The desired information is often dispersed in a variety of books, journals and online resources. This encyclopedia presents the latest facts about all known viruses in a standardized form created by hundreds of the world's leading virologists. Virus taxonomy represents the basic framework that allows an understanding of the complex evolutionary process that continuously takes place among viruses and their hosts. Each of the 300 taxonomically ordered chapters includes detailed information on individual genus members, historical events, the hosts they can affect (animal, man or plant), virion morphology, genome properties, replication strategy, properties of individual transcripts and proteins, sequence accession numbers, biological properties, diseases, recombinant vector constructs, vaccine strains, key references, as well as a high-resolution particle image and a drawing of the genome organization. Its high content of easily accessible detailed information makes this Encyclopedia an indispensable tool for both researchers and lecturers. The new edition includes the recent discoveries made in this field as well as new viruses which have been discovered.

Presents the latest facts about all known viruses. Provides highly structured and condensed information contributed by the world's leading experts.

The time seems ripe for a critical compendium of that segment of the biological universe we call viruses. Virology, as a science, having only recently passed through its descriptive phase of naming and num bering, has probably reached that stage at which relatively few new~ truly new~viruses will be discovered. Triggered by the intellectual probes and techniques of molecular biology, genetics, biochemical cytology, and high-resolution microscopy and spectroscopy, the field has experienced a genuine information explosion. Few serious attempts have so far been made to chronicle these events. This comprehensive series, which will comprise some 6000 pages in a total of about 22 volumes, represents a commitment by a large group of active investigators to analyze, digest, and expostulate on the great mass of data relating to viruses, much of which is now amorphous and disjointed and scattered throughout a wide literature. In this way, we hope to place the entire field in perspective as well as to develop an invaluable reference and sourcebook for researchers and students at all levels. This series is designed as a continuum that can be entered anywhere but which also provides a logical progression of developing facts and integrated concepts.

This book explores a new challenge in virology: to understand how physical properties of virus particles (virions) and viruses (infected cells) affect the course of an infection. Insights from the emerging field of physical virology will contribute to understanding of the physical nature of viruses and cells, and will open new ways for anti-viral interference. Nine chapters and an editorial written by physicists, chemists, biologists and computational experts describe how virions serve as trail blazers in uncharted territory of cells. The authors outline how particles change in composition as they interact with host cells. Such virus dynamics are crucial for virus entry into cells and infection. It influences the modern concepts of virus-host interactions, viral lineages and evolution. The volume gives numerous up-to-date examples of modern virology and provides a fascinating read for researchers, clinicians and students in the field of infectious diseases.

In 1996 the International Committee for Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) recognized the name Nidovirales, as the formal name for Coronaviridae and A rteriviridae. In recognition of this change, and in response to the wishes of our colleagues we named this meeting for the first time "The International Symposium of Nidoviruses". The meeting in the wooded environment of Lake Harmony, Pennsylvania, provided a stimulating opportunity for assessing the progress made in the field since the last meeting in Segovia Spain in 1997. Over 150 scientists from academia and industry attended the meeting. The meeting hosted senior members of the Nidovirus community, some of whom have been studying the subject for over 20 years, as well as younger scientists, the next generation of Nidoviro10gists. The traditional informal format, the shared meals, the social activities and the relatively inexpensive venue made the meeting a popular adventure. In her opening remarks Susan Weiss showed pictures from previous meetings, reminding us how young we used to look. Neal Nathanson was our keynote speaker at the opening night, giving an overview on how viral pathogenesis studies helped in shaping the evolution of viral research and vaccine development. The scientific program of the meeting was divided into 9 sessions including lO keynote presentations. The meeting opened with a session on epidemiology, evolution and genome structure. Sasha Gorbalenya shared with us insights gained from comparative sequence analysis, emphasizing the unifying traits among nidovriuses, but also pointed out the remaining "black holes".