Classifying Viruses

The International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV) establishes guidelines to maintain viral family uniformity.

The Baltimore classification groups viruses into families depending on their type of genome.

The evolution of viruses is speculative as they do not fossilize; biochemical and genetic information is used to create virus histories.

Viruses are obligate intracellular parasites that hijack a host cell's machinery to replicate, thereby causing disease.