The tools of structural biology-really, just practical applications of the basic laws of physics-are integral to building our understanding of the human body and its molecular assailants. Clever minds are needed to make discoveries, and the right tools speed up that process significantly. Science will help extricate us from this pandemic, but new knowledge doesn’t just fall from the sky. Just 11 months after this pandemic started its ugly course, we had vaccines that had been shown to protect people from getting COVID-19, as well as antibody-based drugs to treat those who do get it. We also know in fine detail, what the virus’s killer spike protein looks like and how to gum it up-and, as a result, we also know exactly what a vaccine against it should look like. And we know that this virus is promiscuous: Thought initially to be primarily a respiratory virus, it can also infect cells in the heart, the kidneys, the brain, and the gut-illuminating why COVID-19 exhibits so many different symptoms. We know how COVID-19’s central villain, the novel coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, forces itself into a cell by becoming one with its membrane barrier. But “we have the tools to see the enemy,” he adds, “and we have the hope that we can beat it.” In the battle between scientists and COVID-19, imaging gives scientists an upper hand. “Our entire civilization has been brought down by a tiny virus,” says Yigong Shi, PhD, a leading Chinese structural biologist.
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