Viruses: The Most Abundant Thing You've Never Seen
Dr. Koci explains what a virus is, how common viruses are and the basics of the virus "life cycle" (although viruses don't meet the biological definition of "alive"). You'll hear about what we know about viruses and the enormous impact of these tiny microbes.
by Matt Koci
Published onJun 22, 2022
Viruses: The Most Abundant Thing You've Never Seen
·
Abstract
In his video, Matt Koci, Ph.D. will introduce himself, how he came to work on poultry diseases, and why viruses are fascinating biological paradoxes. He’ll explain what a virus is, how common viruses are, and the basics of a virus life cycle, even though viruses aren't alive. All of this will introduce you to what we know about viruses, and how much we still have to learn, so we can make sense of how something so small ends up being so consequential.
Matt Koci, Ph.D., grew up in the Richmond, VA area playing soccer and developing an interest in science and math. He attended Virginia Tech with the original goal of becoming an engineer, but thanks to an undergraduate research experience in a tumor immunology lab, he ended up majoring in biology with a concentration in microbiology and immunology. After Virginia Tech, he went to the University of Georgia where he got his master's degree and Ph.D. focused on viral pathogenesis. After a short post-doctoral research position at the University of Wisconsin studying how viruses evade antiviral drugs, he joined the at NC State. His lab works to understand the immune mechanisms which allow an animal to recognize, respond, eliminate and develop resistance to pathogens.
Viruses: The Most Abundant Thing You’ve Never Seen (Matt Koci)
This video was originally produced for an audience of entering first-year and transfer students at NC State University as a part of an interdisciplinary experience. It is available for noncommercial reuse under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial 4.0 License, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/.
If you're interested in viruses, you might check out the podcast This Week in Virology.
To learn more about zoonotic diseases (those caused by germs that spread between animals and people) visit the CDC's page on Zoonotic Diseases | One Health.
Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC-BY 4.0)
