Viruses : more friends than foes

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Contents Preface 1. SARS-coronavirus-2 pandemic “I got a cold” Many coronaviruses except for CoV-2 Other epidemics as models Comparisons Measures taken Viruses are opportunistic Masks Infection Disease History of SARS CoV‑2 Origin of SARS-CoV‑2 Influenza 1918 Testing Antibodies Herd immunization Vaccination Therapeutics Viruses — more friends than foes? 2. Viruses — not as you pictured them Viruses — a success story After the Big Bang Instead of Adam and Eve In the beginning were viruses Looking back A sailor and splicing Viruses — dead or alive? 3. Viruses — how they make us ill Viruses wrote history HIV as an example The Berlin patient and the Mississippi baby — cure HIV? No vaccine against HIV? “Naked DNA” Microbicides as “condoms” for women Driving HIV into “suicide” The origin and future of HIV 4. Retroviruses and immortality Reverse transcriptase — a personal retrospective The RNase H — molecular scissors RNase H and embryos Telomerase and eternal life Viruses as cellular nuclei? Viruses for detecting viruses — the PCR 5. Viruses and cancer The Tasmanian devil Retroviral oncogenes The sarcoma saga Viral oncogenes without viruses — a paradox? Viruses and cancer Strange fatalities Retroviruses as teachers of cancer research The Myc protein and reactor accidents Tumor suppressors and car crashes Metastases — and how cells learn to run -Ome and -Omics Cancer — completely different? 23andMe — will I get breast cancer? Viruses and prostate cancer? 6. Viruses that do not make us ill An ocean full of viruses Phages — the viruses of bacteria A coat for the painter and a journal for the scientist We are not alone — we are a superorganism Cesarean section, milk and a “sushi” gene Viruses against global warming and laying eggs A virus full of wasp genes — is that a virus? Prions — can do without genes 7. Viruses — “giant” as cells Giant viruses of algae and a swimming ban in the Baltic Amoebae viruses can tickle Sputnik — viruses of viruses XXL-sized viruses — the pandoraviruses Two Guinness world records: the biggest viruses in the biggest cells Can viruses see? Archaea like it hot and salty 8. Viruses as fossils Viruses inherited Phoenix from the DNA How koalas survive deadly viruses Paleovirology Crippled viruses Cancer or geniuses from viruses? Who built the DNA — viruses? “Mrs. Mendel’s” maize Poisonous toys and epigenetics in Agouti mice Sleeping beauty, ancient fish, platypus, and kois A fence with empty spaces ENCODE for understanding “junk-DNA” 9. Viruses — our oldest ancestors? In the beginning was RNA First chicken or egg? — Neither nor! Viroids — the first viruses? Viroids — illiterate all-rounders Circles of RNA Ribosomes are ribozymes — viruses make proteins! Clover leaves A protein as chaperone From potato to the liver Tobacco mosaic viruses Viruses in “chili sauce” and my apple tree Tulipomania: the first financial crisis caused by a virus The 500 Deutschmark note with MS Merian 10. Viruses and antiviral defense Fast and slow defense No color by silent genes Inheritable immune system in bacteria — and what about us? Therapies imitating antiviral defense — CRISPR/Cas9 From horseshoe crabs and worms for immunization Viruses and psyche 11. Viruses and phages for survival? The forgotten phages Bean sprouts poisoned by phages Which is dirtier, the refrigerator or the toilet? The “Zurich Case” on fecal transfer How to fight obesity The Dutch Famine study Elba worms outsource digestion Ecosphere in a glass ball 12. Viruses for gene therapy Viruses against viruses A leaky door, Lipizzan horses, sheikhs — and publish or perish “Mosquito vaccination” against viruses Viruses for therapy of plants Can viruses save the chestnut trees and bananas? Fungi have sex instead of viruses Stem cells — almost tumor cells? Hydra’s new head 13. Viruses and the future Synthetic biology — dog or cat out of the test-tube? Which came first — the virus or the cell? Fast-runners and slow-progressors Monsters in the test-tube Lucky so far — but what about the end of the world? “Social” viruses A fantastic new “genetics” with sex hormones Viruses for predicting the future? Glossary References Illustrations Credit Index