Book Description

Electron microscopy has a special place among the wide range of techniques available for viral research. With electron microscopy, a virologist can follow the course of viral infections by visualizing cell damage and viral replication. Each virus family has its own structural and functional attributes, but attention is usually focused on the pathogenic and health-threatening viruses. The Ebola and Marburg filoviruses are notorious among these. The work was done at Vector in Novosibirsk, Russia, by Dr. Ryabchikova. Dr. Price has made it possible for Dr. Ryabchikova to explain her experiments and insights by expanding the descriptions and making the book readable by professionals who are not steeped in the intricacies of virology. In the course of writing this book, Dr. Price has incorporated more complete references of work done by other laboratories so that the story of the filoviruses is a compilation of the research done internationally, but told from the Russian perspective. In Ebola and Marburg Viruses: A View of Infection Using Electron Microscopy, the authors combine recent published and unpublished literature with the insight developed in over 30 years in electron microscopy and 15 years in virology to tell the story of filoviruses and how they invade and conquer their hosts. The book describes the dynamic properties of these viruses, follows the stages of filoviral infection from the individual cell to the whole organism, and reconstructs the sequential events that occur in filoviral infections. The book also demonstrates that, rather than a curiosity, the electron micrograph is an integral tool in studies of viral infection and the pathological process. Ebola and MarburgViruses: A View of Infection Using Electron Microscopy includes over 100 outstanding electron micrographs of filoviruses and the cell and tissue damage they cause during infection. Ebola and Marburg Viruses: A View of Infection Using Electron Microscopy is addressed to investigators in the widely diversified fields of medicine and biology. For this reason, Ryabchikova and Price have carefully elucidated concepts familiar to virologists that may be unfamiliar to nonvirolgists. The book is also designed to provide opportunities for investigators specializing in viruses to correlate their findings with the work of electron microscopists.