How Pathogenic Viruses Work

More than 50 viruses can cause human disease, and textbooks are packed with facts about these viruses and the diseases they cause. Indeed, digesting this wealth of information can be daunting both for students and for professors. In How Pathogenic Viruses Work, the author reveals that the key to understanding this complex subject is to recognize that every virus must solve three basic problems: how to reproduce within the cells of its infected host, how to evade host defenses, and how to spread to a new host. Moreover, once the way a virus solves these problems is known, the pathological consequences of the viral infection can be predicted. To demonstrate the power of this approach, the author analyzes a dozen common human viruses, how they solve these problems, and what the resultant pathological consequences are for their human hosts. How Pathogenic Viruses Work offers unique insights into the mind of the virus. But more importantly, this book provides an antidote to information overload by presenting a paradigm for extracting essential information from voluminous virology texts.