Integrating Global Significance with Atomic Level Understanding

Viruses are the most numerous biological entities on the planet, found in every environmental niche that is compatible with life. Viruses are associated with disease and historically the study of viruses has been instrumental in the development of modern biochemistry. The global distribution of viruses is vast, from the upper atmosphere to hot spring environments, and viruses are huge repositories for global genetic diversity. The study of viruses over the last decade has broadened in a revolutionary manner to include fields as diverse as biomedicine (diagnostics, therapeutics, and vaccines) and materials science (with advanced materials for catalysis, computer memory, and battery applications). With continued growth of the technology development pipeline, large-scale nanomanufacturing of virus-based materials has become a key requirement, transitioning the physical virology from basic science to engineering disciplines. Much of this rapid expansion is a result of a very strong foundation in the area of structural virology, which has allowed structure-based design and synthesis. Advances in bioinformatics and sequencing technologies have allowed disciplines outside of traditional virology to take advantage of the ability of viruses to amplify populations from a single unique virus particle and therefore screen for selective phenotypes well beyond the normal biology of any virus. Theory and computational approaches are increasingly able to tackle these large macromolecular systems and the development of new analytical tools and a growing appreciation of the importance of the mechanical properties of these are biological architectures all coalesce to make this an exciting intersection between a wide range of disciplines. There are new expanding frontiers in Physical Virology that build strongly on the traditional approaches but are forging new directions with important applications in medicine and the design, engineering, and nanomanufacturing of new materials across a range of length scales with impacts in human health and the environment.