Viruses are intracellular parasites that cause disease by infecting the cells in the body and, in a study published today in Nature Microbiology, researchers at Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of UPMC and the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine showed how a common virus hijacks a host cell’s protein to help assemble new viruses before they are released. The findings increase our understanding of how viruses reproduce in the body and could lead to new therapeutics.