Scientists find hidden individuality in viral infections

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Add as preferred source Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain An international team of researchers developed a new way to uncover hidden differences in how viruses infect and destroy individual microbial cells—solving a biological puzzle that has persisted for more than 80 years.

For decades, researchers have focused on answering a key question: What happens inside a single infected cell before that cell bursts open to release a new generation of viruses? To answer the question, they typically measure two traits—how long the virus takes to rupture the cell and how many new viruses are released—which are estimated as population averages, masking potentially important differences from one infected cell to the next.