Spillover: Animal Infections and the Next Human Pandemic

by David Quammen

(not captured by a filter, not cultivable in chemical nutrients, not quite alive), and the most fundamental negative axiom is that a virion is not a cell. It doesn’t function the way a cell functions; it doesn’t share the same capacities or frailties. That’s reflected in the fact that viruses are impervious to antibiotics—chemicals valued for their ability to kill bacteria (which are cells) or at least impede their growth. Penicillin works by preventing bacteria from building their cell walls. So do its synthetic alternatives, such as amoxicillin. Tetracycline works by interfering with the internal metabolic processes by which bacteria manufacture new proteins for cell growth and replication. Viruses, lacking cell walls, lacking internal metabolic processes, are oblivious to the effects of such killer drugs. Inside the viral capsid is usually nothing