Scientific and Environmental Impact
The large amount of literature about TMV and its choice for many pioneering investigations in structural biology (including X-ray diffraction), virus assembly and disassembly, and so on, are fundamentally due to the large quantities that can be obtained, plus the fact that it does not infect animals. After growing a few infected tobacco plants in a greenhouse and a few simple laboratory procedures, a scientist can easily produce several grams of virus. As a result of this, TMV can be treated almost as an organic chemical, rather than an infective agent.
Read more about this topic: Tobacco Mosaic Virus
Famous quotes containing the words scientific and/or impact:
“Theology, I am persuaded, derives its initial impulse from a religious wavering; for there is quite as much, or more, that is mysterious and calculated to awaken scientific curiosity in the intercourse with God, and it [is] a problem quite analogous to that of theology.”
—Charles Sanders Peirce (1839–1914)
“As in political revolutions, so in paradigm choice—there is no standard higher than the assent of the relevant community. To discover how scientific revolutions are effected, we shall therefore have to examine not only the impact of nature and of logic, but also the techniques of persuasive argumentation effective within the quite special groups that constitute the community of scientists.”
—Thomas S. Kuhn (b. 1922)