Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 22, 2026

Following the Dynamics of Structural Variants in Experimentally Evolved Populations
Published on: February 3, 2023
Evolutionary analysis of the dynamics of viral infectious disease
Oliver G Pybus1, Andrew Rambaut
1Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, South Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PS, UK. oliver.pybus@zoo.ox.ac.uk
Abstract:
Many organisms that cause infectious diseases, particularly RNA viruses, mutate so rapidly that their evolutionary and ecological behaviours are inextricably linked. Consequently, aspects of the transmission and epidemiology of these pathogens are imprinted on the genetic diversity of their genomes. Large-scale empirical analyses of the evolutionary dynamics of important pathogens are now feasible owing to the increasing availability of pathogen sequence data and the development of new computational and statistical methods of analysis. In this Review, we outline the questions that can be answered using viral evolutionary analysis across a wide range of biological scales.
Related Concept Videos
Viral Mutations
Viral Recombination
Size and Structure of Viral Genomes
Human Virome
Introduction to Virus
Infectious Diseases and Their Occurrence

