Afew decades ago, Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) robots, DNA sequencers, and high-speed computers fostered and accompanied quite a scientific revolution in virology. Acknowledging this radical change, some illustrious scholars alerted their scientific community on a hazardous drift away from investigating the viral ecology, pathogenesis, and disease potential, along with viral identification by testing. “In summary”, wrote Calisher and al. (2001),
remarkable advances in molecular genetics have allowed rapid and precise identifications of viruses and of their genomes; however, such characterizations thus far can provide only limited information about the phenotype and disease potential of a virus.
Their position paper was noticed and its lead author, Professor Charles H. Calisher, was interviewed by Science (Enserink 2001):
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