Scientists are pretty knowledgeable on the viral life cycle and the active molecules in each step of the said cycle. However, they always found it difficult to pinpoint the location of viral molecules inside the infected human cell. That is, until now.
Thanks to the efforts of these scientists from Stanford, it is now possible to determine where viral molecules lie. The method — super-resolution fluorescence microscopy — gives scientists a nanoscale view of the cell. Through this method, they can sift through the crowd and find certain pieces of the virus. The scientists used this method on the HCoV-229E, a coronavirus with a structure similar to the SARS-CoV-2. With this, scientists will be able to better understand how the coronavirus infects cells, and hopefully identify vulnerabilities, which could lead to better treatments.
(Image Credit: Jiarui Wang, Moerner Laboratory)