A virus that infects nearly all children early in life has, in rare cases, been present within human DNA for thousands of ...

Remnants of ancient viral pandemics in the form of viral DNA sequences embedded in our genomes are still active in healthy people, according to new research my colleagues and I recently published.

Researchers have reconstructed ancient herpesvirus genomes from Iron Age and medieval Europeans, revealing that HHV-6 has ...

Ancient DNA reveals that childhood viruses lived with humans for thousands of years, reshaping how we understand human and ...

For the first time, scientists have reconstructed ancient genomes of Human betaherpesvirus 6A and 6B (HHV-6A/B) from ...

Human DNA in its natural state inside cells (left) compared to eight hours after being infected with HSV-1 (right). The virus compacts the human genome’s size significantly and moves it towards the ...

Viruses can't survive on their own, and need a host cell to generate more viral particles and spread. So viruses can often manipulate the functions of cells they infect. Researchers have now shown ...

For more than three decades, Ötzi the Iceman has been a kind of time capsule for researchers—an Alpine body preserved so well that it keeps producing scientific “firsts.” Now, a new analysis suggests ...

Distinguishing between self and non-self is a critical ability of the immune system. Some pathogens have evolved proteins that resemble those of their host, a mechanism called molecular mimicry, in an ...