Selective deactivation of viruses using femtosecond laser pulses

Abstract

Viruses can be described as acellular organisms whose genome consists of nucleic acid that replicate inside living cells (host cells) using their cellular synthetic machinery, and cause the synthesis of specialised elements called virions, that can transfer the genome to other cells. M13 bacteriophage (virus which infects only bacteria) is a filamentous virus that is about 1 μm long and 5-6 nm in diameter