Viruses are everywhere, but most of them are rather harmless. An excellent example is the herpesvirus! As virologist Kennen Hutchison explains, almost all of us have a form of herpes. Chickenpox, cold sores, and shingles are all a type of herpes. Even the chickenpox vaccine means you have herpes! And once you have it, they stick around forever! But don’t freak out, because most cases of herpes don’t hurt us.

For more from Kennen Hutchison, you can follow him on Instagram and Twitter as well as his 'Science with Kennen' channel on Facebook and YouTube. For more on herpes viruses, you can check out this overview here. For more on viruses in general, you can read this short article here. Written and reported by Kennen Hutchison and Kellen Kartub, Ph.D. with production consultant Anny Celsi.

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   Richards A. L., Sollars P. J., Pitts J. D., Stults A. M., Heldwein E. E., Pickard G. E., et al. “The pUL37 tegument protein guides alpha-herpesvirus retrograde axonal transport to promote neuroinvasion.” PLoS Pathog 13.12 (2017): e1006741.

   
   
   

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   Smith G. Herpesvirus transport to the nervous system and back again. Annu Rev Microbiol 66 (2012):10.1146/annurev-micro-092611-150051.

   
   
   
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   Garcia de Jesus, E. I “Hundreds of thousands of marine viruses discovered in world's oceans.” Nature (2019).