Kei Sato was looking for his next big challenge five years ago when it smacked him ' and the world ' in the face. The virologist had recently started an independent group at the University of Tokyo and was trying to carve out a niche in the crowded field of HIV research. 'I thought, 'What can I do for the next 20 or 30 years''' He found an answer in SARS-CoV-2, the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, that was rapidly spreading around the world. In March 2020, as rumours swirled that Tokyo might face a lockdown that would stop research activities, Sato and five students decamped to a former adviser's laboratory in Kyoto. There, they began studying a viral protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to quell the body's earliest immune responses. Sato soon established a consortium of researchers that would go on to publish at least 50 studies on the virus. In just five years, SARS-CoV-2 became one of the most closely examined viruses on the planet. Researchers have published about 150,000 research articles about it, according to the citation database Scopus. That's roughly three times the number of papers published on HIV in the same period. Scientists have also generated more than 17 million SARS-CoV-2 genome sequences so far, more than for any other organism. This has given an unparalleled view into the ways in which the virus changed as infections spread. 'There was an opportunity to see a pandemic in real time in much higher resolution than has ever been achievable before,' says Tom Peacock, a virologist at the Pirbright Institute, near Woking, UK....
Visual representations of the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 have become a common sight over the past year. But this particular image shows real coronavirus particles in unprecedented detail. It is the first 3D image of SARS-CoV-2 made from a single scan of frozen virus particles, using a technique called cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET). Most previous images were either composites from several scans, or computer visualizations.
The image was unveiled in January by researchers at Tsinghua University in Beijing, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology in Thuwal, Saudi Arabia, and the Vienna-based company Nanographics. The researchers added colours to distinguish different parts of the virus.
âWe used machine learning and advanced visualization algorithms to show you the most detailed view of a real SARS-CoV-2 virion, in 3D, directly from Cryo-ET data,â says Nanographics. âWe chose bright pink for the spikes, to signify that they are the part of the virus responsible for attaching to the host cells and infecting them. The rest of the virus is shown in muted, cold colors, to suggest that a virus is not a living thing.â...
A new report from the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board looks at the biggest lessons from the worldâs response to COVID-19 â and the urgent actions we need to take now....
1. How COVID-19 is affecting the globe
Confirmed cases of COVID-19 have now passed 37.4 million globally, according to the Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The number of confirmed deaths stands at over 1.07 million.
In the US, confirmed cases have risen to 7,694,865, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an increase of 53,363 cases from its previous count. The number of deaths rose by 577 to 213,614.
President Donald Trump said on Sunday he had fully recovered from COVID-19 and was not an infection risk for others. "Iâm in great shape,â he told Fox News.
Cases in India have now topped 7 million, after the health ministry reported 74,383 new infections in the previous 24 hours. A rise in infections in southern states is offsetting a drop in western regions.
Asia-Pacific countries including Singapore, Australia and Japan are easing some international travel restrictions as coronavirus cases slow.
Chinaâs Qingdao city will conduct COVID-19 tests for its population of more than 9 million people over five days, after new cases appeared linked to a hospital treating imported infections....
