It would be more accurate to say that we find ourselves at odds with a microscopic photocopy machine. Picture a human lung cell as a cramped office just big enough for a desk, a chair and a copy machine. Recently a visual team, working closely with researchers, created “the most accurate model of the Sars-CoV-2 viral particle currently available”: a barbed, multicoloured globe with the texture of fine moss. On February 11, the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses officially renamed it Sars-CoV-2, to indicate that it was very closely related to the Sars virus, another coronavirus. The S protein on this coronavirus is nearly identical in structure to the one in the first Sars — “Sars Classic” — but some data suggests that it binds to the target enzyme far more strongly.

Source: Daily Nation June 07, 2020 07:30 UTC