This story is part of a larger series on viroids and virusoids, small infectious RNAs. It is also the sixth installment in a series on hepatitis D virus, a virusoid-like pathogen that causes serious ...

According to the RNA world hypothesis, life began when RNA molecules evolved the ability to make more copies of themselves. Now we have discovered an RNA molecule that is almost capable of this – it ...

Learn what the Nipah virus is, how it spreads, and why it has one of the highest fatality rates among infectious diseases.

The technology, called the Viral-Engineered RNA-based Activation System (VERAS), hijacks the virus’s own replication machinery to switch on reporter or therapeutic genes precisely in infected cells.