State-of-the-Art Virology in Norway

Dear Colleagues,

Norway is positioned in a remote and sparsely inhabited corner of the world with less than 5.4 million human inhabitants spread over 385 207 km² of forest, tundra, coastal landscapes, and mountains. We enjoy conditions that are generally conducive to good health for humans; domesticated- and wild-, land- and marine animals; and plants. In addition to traditional livestock and meat production, farmed fish have become the most important production species with about 1.5 million tons salmon and rainbow trout produced annually. Norway, as the only country in Europe, has about 25,000 wild reindeer living in the southern mountain areas. In addition, there are about 220,000 semi-domesticated reindeer, most of them associated with the Saami reindeer herding in the northern part of the country. Viruses, the most abundant and biologically diverse entities on our planet, infect every living organism. While the majority of viruses probably do not harm their host, some cause acute or chronic diseases that may have serious health-related and economic consequences. Virology research in Norway has mainly focused on viruses that cause disease, but viruses can also be beneficial. Oncolytic viruses can be used for tumor therapy, and bacteriophages can be used to protect farmed fish and humans from bacterial infections. Both strategies have become important fields of research. Importantly, access to next-generation sequencing methods has given us the possibility to identify new viruses and follow viral evolution.

Norway is part of the “global village”, and the ongoing SARS-CoV-2 pandemic of the last two years has spurred a flurry of Norwegian SARS-CoV-2 publications. These papers mainly present epidemiological data from Norway and only rarely include experimental work with SARS-CoV-2. The SARS-COV-2 pandemic has increased the interest in virology both among researchers and the general public. With our travelling habits and the movements and seasonal migrations of birds, mammals, fish, and insects, we are constantly exposed to new hosts, vectors, and potential pathogens, and high-quality virus research is more important than ever.

The goal of this Special Issue is to engage virology researchers in Norway working on viruses infecting humans, animals, fish, arthropods, plants, or bacteriophages to display their state-of-the-art virology research as original research articles or short communications, but reviews are also welcome. We hope to be able to cover many different aspects including, but not limited to, the below-mentioned topics. If more than 10 papers are accepted, this can be published as a reprinted Special Issue book.

Prof. Dr. Christine Hanssen Rinaldo
Prof. Dr. Morten Tryland
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 250 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for assessment.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Viruses is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.