Look into Gaston Naessens, and what his dark field microscopy technique allowed him to observe.
He named a funndamental life form, which can be triggered into a bacterial evolutionary cycle towards sporing, which he dubbed the somatid.
Mostly, they exist at stages 1 to 3 in ALL life forms, and seem to be regulators.
When the host/environment begins to decay, a shift in their lifecycle is observed and 'disease' symptoms manifest in the host.
Stage 8 of the somatid lifecycle sees it develop a fatty lipid layer protecting the delicate RNA strand.
Now. Define what is REALLY a virus?
Who knew?
You have to go back.
As in, Pasteur vs Bechamp.
Pasteur won out in the day due to connections to Napolean, but Bechamp was right and Naessens and others have proven it.
More recent interesting topic to study is cell bioekectrics, and how their organisation is what changes life's expression and NOT DNA (see recent studies with 2 headed flat worms with identical DNA to 'normal' flat worms, who have had the biolectric configuration of their cells 'adjusted').