Joseph DeRisi Quotes

Surveying the way viruses have been discovered in the past, I came to the conclusion that I could use my technology that I developed as a graduate student - DNA microarray technology - to create a chip that would simultaneously screen for all viruses ever discovered, and furthermore have the built-in capability of discovering new viruses.

As mechanistic biologists, we are hoping that by understanding how the virus works at the molecular level, we will be able to predict with more accuracy how it will evolve.

The unique nature about the influenza virus is its great potential for changes, for mutation.

PCR made it easier to see that certain people are infected with HIV.

The nature of a protective immune response to HIV is still unclear. Because in a very, very unique manner, unlike virtually any other microbe with which we're familiar, the HIV virus has evolved in a way that the immune system finds it very difficult, if not impossible, to deal with the virus.

The more cases of Ebola infection we have, the more chances there are for the virus to mutate in a particular way that adapts it well to living in humans, replicating in humans, and perhaps transmitting from human to human.

As life forms, viruses are just inherently interesting. It's the microworld - this universe of life too small for us to see - but it's profoundly complicated, and immensely powerful. Ebola is like a beautiful and frightening predator. There is a wonder in the operations of nature that can't be denied, even when we're the losers.

An inefficient virus kills its host. A clever virus stays with it.

The variety of genes on the planet in viruses exceeds, or is likely to exceed, that in all of the rest of life combined.

But what has been pretty good about the coronaviruses in general is they keep their structural pieces very similar. What do I mean by that? There's certain - the outer coat, the envelope, and the inside part of the virus has stayed very constant.

My lab used to do gene expression and genomics, and we did a lot of sequencing samples from virus outbreaks.

The single biggest threat to man's continued dominance on the planet is the virus.

Every time somebody new gets the Ebola virus, it mutates.

We all have a stake in the battle against Ebola.

Our examination of computer viruses leads us to the conclusion that they are very close to what we might define as "artificial life." Rather than representing a scientific achievement, this probably represents a flaw in our definition.

Being overly sensitive to rejection can become a destructive virus.

We all know many people who have been through this reality, and how it changes them. This happens to be an area I know something about. It's a virus.

There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.

Last week I got a flu that I caught, 'cause my daughter coughed ... into my mouth.

If we were able to put every single solitary cancer cell that has a genomic - had their genome done in one place, we have the computing capacity to go in and look at what are the similarities and dissimilarities that make them work and don't work. And every expert will tell you, it is probably gonna exponentially increase the capacity to be able to find, A, cures, B, vaccines, and C, turn some cancers into chronic diseases, rather than it cost you your life.

I just wonder what it would be like to be reincarnated in an animal whose species had been so reduced in numbers than it was in danger of extinction. What would be its feelings toward the human species whose population explosion had denied it somewhere to exist. I must confess that I am tempted to ask for reincarnation as a particularly deadly virus.

You might recognize me, I'm the fourth guy from the left on the evolutionary chart.

Every advance in knowledge and technique is matched by a new kind of death, a new strain. Death adapts, like a viral agent.

Sending us Ebola bombs in the form of sweaty Glaswegians just isn't cricket.

When people asked him why he didn't work with those viruses, he replied, I don't particularly feel like dying.