smallpox, lifespans

[biocukm at okway.okstate.edu]

In article <19930831135751638 at nomvs.lsumc.edu> mfreis at NOMVS.LSUMC.EDU writes:
>
>       First, regarding generating
>      viruses from their DNA.  There is a rich history of generating vir
>      uses from nucleic acids.  The one i'm most familiar with
>      is poliovirus, published in 1980.  It has been carried out for
>      many viruses.  sometimes the RNA is infectious as well.  The perti
>      question is whether it has been carried out with a pox
>      virus.  I don't know.

The original question dealt with reconstructing a virus from sequence 
information rather than from DNA.  While I think this is possible by
synthesizing many long oligonucleotides and tying them together as Khorana's
lab did earlier for tRNA genes, I doubt very much that anyone has actually
gone this tedious route.

Ulrich Melcher
Ok St. Univ.
Stillwater OK USA