Welkin Johnson, Associate Blogger

In my first year of graduate school I learned that retroviruses are unique among animal viruses in having a "fossil" record, comprised of the hundreds of thousands of endogenous proviruses embedded in the genomes of virtually all animal species (including humans).  Those numbers sound big, but these remnants of ancient epidemics are an underestimate, possibly by orders of magnitude, of the sheer impact of viruses on our own natural history.  From this simple but astonishing fact was born my fascination with the genetic interplay between viruses and hosts in all its manifestations, and today work in my own laboratory is guided by the theme of virus-host coevolution.

Welkin is Associate Professor of Biology, Boston College, Boston, MA.