Killing a Virus with Another Virus: Tales of a Suicidal Virus
Carl Spetz of Bioforsk in Norway will eliminate sweet potato feathery mottle virus (SPFMV) from infected sweet potato plants by co-infecting the plants with cucumber mosaic virus (CMV) engineered with RNAi against SPFMV. Because CMV can only survive on sweet potato in the presence of SPFMV, it is itself eliminated as it eliminates SPFMV.