Jimena was quietly enjoying her lunch when an unexpected knock on the door startled her. She found two people in suits standing on her front porch. They explained they were medical scientists from Columbia University in New York, and they were visiting her to talk about some old blood samples from a transfusion she had back in the 1970s. They showed Jimena a consent form that she had signed. It had allowed scientists to store and study her blood to help advance their medical knowledge. Now she was worried. Did she have some terrible disease? She invited them in and sat down in case the news was bad. The researchers explained that they were part of a team that searches for viruses in old blood transfusion samples. Their work was aimed at finding new transfusion-transmissible viruses that ought to be screened for in the donated blood supply to further protect patients. They were looking at samples from the 1970s because, unlike today, the only virus screened for back then was Hepatitis B. These lightly screened samples might lead to discovery of previously unrecognized viruses. Sadly, lack of broader screening for bloodborne viruses meant that thousands of people were infected with Hepatitis C and human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) by way of contaminated blood transfusions during the 1970s and 1980s.

People with hemophilia, a blood-clotting disorder, had an unusually high prevalence of Hepatitis C virus and HIV. This is because managing hemophilia in the 1970s and 1980s often involved administering clotting factors derived from human blood. Before the stricter screening went into effect, at least 6,000 hemophiliacs in the United States are believed to have contracted Hepatitis C from blood transfusions. Of course, hemophiliacs were not the only ones who suffered: Anyone who got a transfusion for any reason at that time was at high risk for exposure to these viruses.

In 1976, during her last trimester of pregnancy, Jimena had developed severe anemia. She remembered receiving a blood transfusion a few weeks before she delivered her son, Jose. The transfusion was done to ensure that her blood levels could support both her and her child during delivery. She knew this must have been the reason the doctors were visiting her now. She asked them if they were here to tell her she had HIV or hepatitis––she had been feeling very tired lately, and wondered if this was the cause.

The doctors hastened to explain that the blood she received was not infected with Hepatitis C or HIV. But they had found something else: a new virus never seen before in humans. They examined the medical records of all the people who had received blood with this virus, and it did not seem to cause disease. However, they wanted to investigate more. They were here to get a more detailed medical history from Jimena, along with a new blood sample. They also wanted to reach out to Jose, Jimena’s son, and see if he’d be willing to take part in the study, too.

Jimena’s eyes became moist as she explained that Jose had died of cancer eight years ago. The doctors expressed their sympathy, but pressed Jimena for the type of cancer he had developed. She said it was liver cancer. "Are you sure we didn’t catch hepatitis C from the transfusion?" she asked the researchers. "I know that can cause liver cancer, right?" "Yes, it can," they replied.

What information would be needed about this new virus in order to classify it into a viral family?

a. Genome architecture
b. Type of nucleic acid present
c. The presence of a nucleus
d. Presence of an envelope
e. Capsid symmetry
f. Host range