ERC Consolidator Grant · 2023
Functional evolution of giant virus capsids
How do viruses identify their hosts in a challenging environment? This question is highly relevant for protist-infecting giant viruses in aquatic ecosystems, where the density of host cells is typically low and random encounters are rare. Giant viruses have genome sizes of up to two megabases and encode a vast genetic diversity, but we know almost nothing about their diverse capsid structures and the various strategies they use for infecting the next host cell. During the last decade, I have shed light on the symbiotic interactions between marine flagellates, giant viruses and their virophage parasites. With CAPSOLUTION, I will use our collection of freshwater flagellate cultures to…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.