The journal covers basic research into viruses affecting animals, plants, bacteria and fungi, including their molecular biology, structure, assembly, pathogenesis, immunity, interactions with the host cell, evolution and ecology.

Molecular aspects of control and prevention are also covered, as well as viral vectors and gene therapy, but clinical virology is excluded.

The field of virology began in the 1890s, with the discovery of infectious agents small enough to pass through filters sufficiently fine to catch bacteria.

Published by Springer-Verlag out of its Vienna office, its papers were in a mixture of languages, mainly German, French and English, and as the Second World War continued, publication became erratic.

[2][6] George Hirst, Lindsay Black and Salvador Luria saw the need for a journal that united basic science research across all viruses, regardless of their host species.

Authors included Renato Dulbecco, Alfred Hershey, Raymond Latarjet, André Michel Lwoff and Marguerite Vogt, among others.

The journal had an international authorship from the start, with authors from the United States and France, two major centres of phage research at that date, as well as Japan.

[8][20][21] Of Hirst's co-founders, Luria, the well-known phage researcher, remained a co-editor for 18 years; Black was the plant virus editor until 1965.