How a super-microscope could revolutionise what we know about HIV | Wellcome
Channel: Wellcome
Date: 2017-10-18

With HIV becoming resistant to drugs, we need to stay one step ahead. A cutting-edge microscopy technique offers new hope, as it will help researchers develop new ways to treat this deadly virus. 

With cryo-electron microscopy, we can now see the world at 1 million times magnification, which makes a single human hair as wide as a football pitch. Using this technique, Professor Peijun Zhang and her team have been able to reveal the structure of one fundamental part of HIV – the capsid.

This work may give us a new target in the fight against HIV drug resistance, helping people like Dr Doug Fink. As an infectious diseases doctor, who has managed the treatment of people living with HIV in London and in sub-Saharan Africa, he’s seen how difficult it can be for people to live with daily cocktails of drugs. With this new discovery, it may be possible to make their lives a bit easier.

Wellcome supports the work of people like Peijun and Doug because only by creating new knowledge can we understand how things work, build on that knowledge and use it to improve health for everyone.

With thanks to Peijun Zhang, Doug Fink, Greg Towers and Chris van Tulleken.

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