The Many-Faced Virus

Viruses populate our planet and influence human life more strongly than many are accustomed to thinking. What do we know about them—and how much more remains to learn—tells virologist Viktor Zuev. Data from the field of evidence-based medicine will help protect against disease. Because it’s not for nothing that they say: “forewarned is forearmed”!

Viktor Abramovich Zuev is a Doctor of Medical Sciences, a professor, an Honored Scientist of the Russian Federation, honorary vice-president of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, a member of the New York Academy of Sciences, a member of the editorial board of the journal “Questions of Virology,” and the chief researcher at the National Research Center for Epidemiology and Microbiology named after N. F. Gamaleya of the Ministry of Health of the Russian Federation. Among his achievements are the discovery of a slow influenza infection and a factor of aging in mammals’ organisms, including humans. He is the author of scientific books on latent, chronic, and slow viral infections, as well as several popular-science publications.

It’s clear that this is popularization “from the first hand,” not filtered through journalists. And it’s not only because the author, in many ways, talks about his own research.

There is another hard-to-grasp but important feature of true science: a kind of incompleteness. Many chapters end as if “right at the most interesting point.” This is like a detective investigation—there’s an engaging inquiry—but there is no unambiguous resolution. All of this (together with vividness and specificity) creates the feeling that you are involved in the described research. I almost felt like a virologist.

Georgiy Ruyrikov, staff member of the Institute for Problems of Ecology and Evolution, Russian Academy of Sciences