Viruses need our bodies’ protein-making machinery to multiply and spread.

For a virus to spread, it must first find a way into a cell. Viruses, like humans, need to make proteins (Part 1) and depending on the type of virus, carry the recipe for these as either DNA or RNA. The problem for viruses, however, is that they do not have the necessary equipment nor ingredients (amino acids) to read their recipe and build their own proteins. Because of these limitations, viruses must invade the cells of a host, where they can hijack the hosts protein-making equipment and replicate themselves. The additional copies of the virus then move out of the cell, ready to spread to another person.