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

Viruses use the molecular repertoire of the host cell to replicate. Researchers want to exploit this for the treatment of influenza. The team identified a compound that inhibits the body's own ...

That's one of the reasons that RNA viruses have been attractive candidates for gene therapy and vaccines: no risk of permanent integration. The cells that had this DNA insertion were so rare, however, ...

Researchers at Cima Universidad de Navarra have discovered that a ribonucleic acid that does not contain information to make proteins (long non-coding RNA) plays a crucial role in signalling and ...

Comparison of a single-stranded RNA and a double-stranded DNA with their corresponding nucleobases. (Image: Wikimedia Commons, CC SA 3.0) The most common type of base pairing is the Watson-Crick base ...

Chemists at UCL and the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology have demonstrated how RNA (ribonucleic acid) might have replicated itself on early Earth – a key process in the origin of life. Scientists ...

Researchers at San Diego State University and Michigan State University are shedding new light on how viruses meticulously pack their genetic material — a breakthrough that could help researchers ...

People understand that someone can be predisposed to mental illness by inheriting certain genes or gene variants, but new research is revealing that inherited mental illnesses are also promoted by ...