This volume describes the application of modern techniques of molecular analysis to important virus groups. Virology, like other branches of biological sciences, has been transformed in recent years by the availability of an expanding battery of techniques for molecular analysis. Many of the methods worked out for a particular virus are applicable to others, and some, particularly those employing viruses as vectors for expresson of foreign genes, have impacted powerfully upon biologists whose interests lie outside the field of virology. Also, some of the most powerful new techniques, such as PCR, now allow the study of viruses which have proven inaccessible to conventional approaches. This book, which can be considered as a companion volume to Virology: A Practical Approach brings the reader up to date with modern techniques in use with the virus groups of widest interest to the research community. A.J. Davison is the editor of Seminars in Virology - Alpha Herpes Viruses, and R.M. Elliott is the editor of The Bunyaviridae.