Antibiotics don't affect a virus. Viruses infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. This page contains a technical definition of Virus. virus meaning: 1. an extremely small piece of organic material that causes disease in humans, animals, and plants…. If you're seeing this message, it means we're having trouble loading external resources on our website. Usually the nucleic acid is RNA; sometimes it is DNA.Viruses are able to cause many types of diseases, such as polio, ebola and hepatitis. They are always induced by people. All definitions on the TechTerms website are written to be technically accurate but also easy to understand. Viruses consist of nucleic acid and a protein coat. These contaminated objects are known as fomites, and can play an important role in … It explains in computing terminology what Virus means and is one of many software terms in the TechTerms dictionary. The structure of a virus and how it infects a cell. A virus is a very tiny, infectious particle that lives inside of its host, which can be any living organism. Virus Definition. The structure of a virus and how it infects a cell. Many, like influenza, cause illness. Virus SARS-CoV-2, a member of the subfamily Coronavirinae Virus classification (unranked): Virus Realms Duplodnaviria Monodnaviria Riboviria Varidnaviria A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. If you're behind a web filter, please make sure that the domains *.kastatic.org and *.kasandbox.org are unblocked. A virus is a microscopic organism that invades living cells in order to reproduce. The virus particles may then either end up on a new potential host or an inanimate object. It can make copies of itself inside another organism's cells. Definition: A computer virus is a malicious software program loaded onto a user’s computer without the user’s knowledge and performs malicious actions. Learn more. Medical Author: Melissa Conrad Stöppler, MD; Coronavirus: a type of common virus that infects humans, typically leading to an upper respiratory infection (URI.) A virus is often housed in a protein coat or protein envelope, a protective covering which allows the virus to survive between hosts.. Virus Structure Medical Definition of Coronavirus. A virus is a microscopic parasite that can infect living organisms and cause disease. Virology is the study of viruses. A virus is a chain of nucleic acids (DNA or RNA) which lives in a host cell, uses parts of the cellular machinery to reproduce, and releases the replicated nucleic acid chains to infect more cells. What a virus is. Most people will be infected with at least one type of coronavirus in their lifetime. 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