An Aston University researcher has created one of the first-ever computer reconstructions of a virus, including its complete native genome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although other researchers have created similar reconstructions, this is the first to replicate the exact chemical and 3D structure of a \u2018live\u2019 virus.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The breakthrough could lead the way to research into an alternative to antibiotics, reducing the threat of anti-bacterial resistance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The research, Reconstruction and validation of entire virus model with complete genome from mixed resolution cryo-EM density,<\/em> by Dr Dmitry Nerukh, from the Department of Mathematics in the College of Engineering and Physical Sciences at Aston University, is published in the journal Faraday Discussions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The research was conducted using existing data of virus structures measured via cryo-Electron Microscopy (cryo-EM) and computational modelling which took almost three years despite using supercomputers in the UK and Japan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The breakthrough will open the way for biologists to investigate biological processes which can\u2019t currently be fully examined because the genome is missing in the virus model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This includes finding out how a bacteriophage, which is a type of virus that infects bacteria, kills a specific disease-causing bacterium.<\/p>\n\n\n\n At the moment it is not known how this happens, but this new method of creating more accurate models will open up further research into using bacteriophage to kill specific life-threatening bacteria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This could lead to more targeted treatment of illnesses which are currently treated by antibiotics and therefore help to tackle the increasing threat to humans of antibiotic resistance.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" An Aston University researcher has created one of the first-ever computer reconstructions of a virus, including its complete native genome. Although other researchers have created similar reconstructions, this is the first to replicate the exact chemical and 3D structure of a \u2018live\u2019 virus. The breakthrough could lead the way to research into an alternative to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":83393,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[86,62,6617,93,23,24],"tags":[17013,18211,18213,18212,18214],"class_list":["post-83392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-healthcare","category-regional-news-newsletter","category-research","category-top-stories","category-united-kingdom","category-used","tag-aston-university","tag-cryo-electron-microscopy","tag-cryo-em","tag-dr-dmitry-nerukh","tag-faraday-discussions"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=83392"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84518,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/83392\/revisions\/84518"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/83393"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=83392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=83392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=83392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}