The Rice University study is designed to help produce a designer drug that would force a killer virus to mutate itself out of existence.

Rather than focusing solely on random genetic mutations, as past analyses have, the researchers said their analysis can predict exactly how evolution is affected by the exchange of entire genes and sets of genes.

"We wanted to focus more attention on the roles that recombination and horizontal gene transfer play in the evolution of viruses and bacteria," said bioengineer Michael Deem, who led the study. "So, we incorporated both into the leading models that are used to describe bacterial and viral evolution, and we derived exact solutions to the models."

The result, the scientists said, is a formula that more accurately captures what happens in real world evolution.

The research that included Rice graduate student Enrique Munoz and Jeong-Man Park, a physicist at the Catholic University of Korea, is available online ahead of publication in the journal Physical Review E.