Chimera (virus)

A chimera or chimeric virus is a virus that contains genetic material derived from two or more distinct viruses. It is defined by the Center for Veterinary Biologics (part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service) as a "new hybrid microorganism created by joining nucleic acid fragments from two or more different microorganisms in which each of at least two of the fragments contain essential genes necessary for replication."[1] The term genetic chimera had already been defined to mean: an individual organism whose body contained cell populations from different zygotes or an organism that developed from portions of different embryos.^{[citation needed]} Chimeric flaviviruses have been created in an attempt to make novel live attenuated vaccines.[2]