People think only of life, but in fact death is important in the proper balance of life. It's so new that you won't even find it in the latest biology textbooks. It was known that a major battle is fought when a virus tries to establish an infection. Suicide as a Defense Mechanism When a virus invades the cells of a host organism, its purpose is to take over the metabolic processes of the host cells and get them to make more virus instead. They express genes in just the right sequence and take over cell machinery to start making more of their own kind.
Cell suicide is one way host cells can foil the virus' takeover attempt.
But some viruses have developed the ability to circumvent the host cells' suicide defense system. Her discovery was an outgrowth of her research program to develop a class of insect viruses, called baculoviruses, as biopesticides for harmful pests like armyworms, budworms and cabbage loopers. These and other pests feed on corn, tomatoes and other crops, causing much destruction and damage. The virus would evolve to adapt gene expression to beat the host before the host mounts an apoptotic response. The ability of a virus to combat programmed cell death in a host organism also may help a virus extend its range to infect an even broader array of insects.