-they have a relatively small number of virus-encoded proteins making medical therapy more difficult
antivirals are hard to discover due to a lack of targets
antivirals have side effects
viral genomes mutate quickly within host (usually more than one drug needed)
prevention is better than cure
-phage attaches to host cell and inserts DNA -linear dsDNA cyclizes to circular DNA
cell synthesizes capsid proteins
cell replicates phage DNA and DNA is packaged into capsids
phage lyses cell and progeny phages are released