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Nature Medicine 5, 484 - 485 (1999)
doi:10.1038/8364

The Holy Grail of influenza virologists

John S. Oxford1 & Rod S. Daniels2

  1. Academic Retroscreen Virology, Department of Medical Microbiology St. Bartholomew's and The Royal London School of Medicine & Dentistry, 64 Turner Street, Whitechapel, London E1 2AD, UK
  2. Virology Division, The National Institute for Medical Research, The Ridgeway, Mill Hill, London NW7 1AA, UK


High throughput sequencing now makes it likely that many complete viral genomes will be sequenced. This raises the question of whether it is necessary to study live virus for infectious diseases that have been eradicated or viruses from past epidemics.