(DW.COM) – So this is what you look like! Until now, there have only been computer graphics of the coronavirus. Now, Austrian researchers have photographed SARS-CoV-2 for the first time in 3D.
This picture is taken from 3-D images of real SARS-CoV-2 virus from snap-frozen samples. They come from the company Nanographics, a spin-off of the Vienna University of Technology. They are based on data from researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing.
The Chinese scientists had succeeded in extracting, scanning and digitizing intact SARS-CoV-2 virus particles in samples. In the process, the scientists managed to preserve the spike proteins of the virus samples in their structure as best as possible.
