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What are the steps that a virologist under goes to investigate an unknown virus?

My interest career wise is investigation. I'm less than 3 months away to start my bachelors degree in Biology and I have been thinking into what branch I'll be delving in to once I finish it. One of them is virology. I understand that this studies the deseases that viruses cause in an organism. But what exactly does the virologist do in the lab that brings him/her more knowledge about the specimen. I'm intrigued because the virus itself is dangerous due to its effects. I want a response that highlights the processes done to the virus to acquire more information about it. Thank you. #biology #chemistry #environmental-science #environment #laboratory #life-sciences #microbiology #virology

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Anjana’s Answer

Hello Christian,


Biology is a wonderful major that you can learn more about different field such as molecular biology, biochemistry, virology, genetics etc. When you take biology lab classes, you will learn about tissue and bacteria culture to find the morphological changes and different types of virus. Virology course teaches you the concept of various kind of viruses, viral enzymes, and mRNA capping etc. Taking research classes will help you to understand basic idea of an unknown virus.


Thank you,
Anjana John
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Rachel’s Answer

Hi Cristian!

I am a virologist in the Seattle area, and I work on diseases of wildlife, where we often get disease without a known cause. such fun mystery! One strategy uses something called 'Koch's Postulates' which would make good reading for you. other strategies include electron microscopy to try to spot virus-like particles in samples, ultra-centrifugation to concentrate virus particles for further analysis, and of course polymerase chain reaction (PCR) with carefully designed primers to look for viral genomes . all of these steps require careful planning and research into what others have seen or done, using evidence from each test to plan the next.

Rachel recommends the following next steps:

read about virus and bacteria culture methods, as that is very often one of the first steps (and a key part of Koch's Postulates).
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