Animals don’t have access to antimicrobials, so they depend on the immune system to fight infections. Studies of an unusual virus infecting wild koalas revealed a new form of “genome immunity,” according to researchers from the University of Massachusetts Medical School, in Boston, and the University of Queensland, in Australia (Cell 2019;179[3]:632-643.e12).
Although retroviruses embody the chromosomes of host cells as part of their infectious