Virology

This book highlights key findings generated during the past years from the main disciplines that constitute Physical Virology, from theoretical physics and simulations to material sciences and vaccines development to structural biology. Each chapter is written by world-class scientists from these areas and is a comprehensive review of where this field stands, as well as the future of Physical Virology. The diversity in the formal training of these scientists results in solving common problems using very distinct approaches, which can produce surprising findings. The multi- and interdisciplinary nature of this field has created a remarkable community that aims at understanding how viruses work and how they can be used in material sciences, chemistry, and biomedicine. Furthermore, the development of Physical Virology has resulted in technological advances that have shaped other fields; for example, it would be impossible to think about the development of Cryo-EM to solve the structure of complex viruses with atomic resolution without the contribution of scientists that created the field of Physical Virology. In the past decade, there has been a great success in the generation of viral systems that can encapsulate drugs, non-viral genetic material, or nanoparticles, as well as in the chemical and genetical modification of virions. Without any doubt in the immediate future, some of these technologies will jump from the bench to the market, creating a revolution in translational and biomedical sciences. The book provides key perspectives for the field, derived from expert´s opinions.

This book comprehensively reviews the potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in biomedical research and healthcare, with a major emphasis on virology. The initial chapter presents the applications of machine learning methods for structured data, such as the classical support vector machine and neural network, modern deep learning, and natural language processing for unstructured data in biomedical research and healthcare. The subsequent chapters explore the applications of AI in tackling COVID-19, analysis of the pandemic, viral infection, disease spread, and control. The book further identifies the potential applications of machine learning in the field of virology with a focus on the key aspects of infection: diagnosis, transmission, response to treatment, and resistance. The book also discusses progress and challenges in developing viral vaccines and examines the application of viruses in translational research and human healthcare.

By their powers of reason scientists will be able to extract from nature the answers to their questions. From: Critique of Pure Reason, 1781 Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), German Philosopher History is a composite of stories. The history of the biological disciplines has been written by all those who opened the gates of new knowledge by generating ideas and the experiments to support them. Previous authors have attempted various approaches to the history of virology, as is reflected in the numerous books and book-series issuing from the publishing houses.