What is ICTVdB?

The Universal Virus Database, ICTVdB, is authorised by ICTV (International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) and has been constructed by Cornelia Büchen-Osmond, from 1991-2000 in Bioinformatics Group, Australian National University, in consultation with ATCC and supported by NSF. In 2001 ICTVdB moved to the Biosphere 2 Center, the Western Campus of the Earth Institute, Columbia University of New York USA.

The directory of ICTVdB is an Index of Viruses, a list of approved virus names linked to virus descriptions coded from information in Virus Taxonomy: The Seventh Report of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, van Regenmortel et al. (eds) Academic Press (2000), and includes updates subsequently approved by ICTV. It also incorporates the plant virus database VIDEdB and is illustrated with EM pictures, diagrams and images of symptoms contributed by virologists around the world.

• searchable descriptions of virus isolates, species, genera, families, orders,
• images of many viruses, and
• links to genomic and protein databanks.

• for user-friendly simultaneous access to character list, data files and specification files
• for interactive identification and data retrieval,
• and for data conversion shopfronts eg for phylogenetic research.

• entry forms on the Web to peer review new virus data through ICTV Study Groups.
• descriptions on the level of isolates and species for all known viruses.