Architects of their own demise: do host cells repair viral genomes?

Project summary

Many viruses causing disease in humans have RNA genomes. RNA is much more fragile than DNA and breaks easily, making the virus non-infectious. So far, there has been no investigation into how RNA viruses can repair their broken genomes. Here I propose that they exploit the RNA repair machinery of the host to do so. Using influenza virus as prototype, I have designed a system of deficient viruses which can enter cells but can only infect them following RNA breakage and subsequent repair.