Using X-Ray Laser, Researchers Image a Single Virus, Destroying It In The Process

Mimivirus Xiao C, Kuznetsov YG, Sun S, Hafenstein SL, Kostyuchenko VA, et al.

Talk about upping your shutter speed. A new X-ray laser method is able to image a single mimivirus (that’s a large virus, sure, but it’s still really small) completely just before the energy of the X-ray beam cause the virus to explode in a burst of plasma.

To achieve this, a team of scientists injected a stream of buffer and viruses into the path of the X-ray beam, which was pulsing with a 10-micron-diameter beam. From the resulting diffraction pattern of the photons collected, they were able to accurately rebuild the capsid of the virus.

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Science, Clay Dillow, health, imaging, mimivirus, virus, x-ray imaging, x-rays

Coupled with a second study in which researchers were able to image the nanocrystals in proteins via a similar femtosecond X-ray method (both papers were published in the journal Nature), it seems this kind of imaging is on the fast track toward resolutions that can image the structures of single molecules.

[Ars Technica]