A springboard for developing new approaches to understanding, preventing, and treating picornaviral diseases.Examines the most current breakthroughs as well as the challenges that lie ahead in picornavirus research; encapsulates current knowledge of the molecular biology, evolution, and pathogenesis of this large family of viruses; and, examines the diseases that these viruses cause and the latest vaccines and antiviral drugs to prevent and control those diseases.Explores the structural and mechanistic bases of picornavirus replication, highlighting new insights about the host cell interactions needed for virus growth; and, illustrates how the regular occurrence of mutations, typical of viruses with RNA as genetic material, generates the quasispecies dynamics that underlie viral fitness.Focuses on picornaviruses that cause disease, examining pathogenicity and innate and acquired immune responses against infection as well as the latest vaccine and antiviral drug strategies.