At the forefront of viral ecology and personalized medicine

There are 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000—10³¹! —viruses on Earth, making them the most abundant life form in the planet. They infect all known cell types from all three Domains of life and deeply influence their life cycles, interactions, evolution, and health. Viral diversity is astounding. There are thousands of species in every milliliter of water and hundreds of thousands in a gram of soil. This diversity is also present in our bodies. In fact, most of the genetic differences between humans are the viruses living in their gut. Most of these viruses, however, are completely unknown to science. On average, 70% viral genes encode unknown functions, and this information represents the dark matter of the biological universe. For over two decade, SDSU researchers have led the way to characterize the global virosphere in a cross-disciplinary area of excellence at SDSU: The Viral Information Institute (VII; "vee").