Telomelysin, a common-cold virus reprogrammed to destroy cancer cells, has won the world's first approval for esophageal cancer. It took 35 years, one surgeon's idea, and an Okayama University startup pushing through a regulatory maze.
It began with a particle mistaken for a bacterium in an English cooling tower. Two decades later, giant virus research in Japan has reached a startling question: where did the cell nucleus that defines us come from? A look at Furtivovirus, found in a Kamakura river.
