Image of the month

The first image of 2012 is a transmission electron micrograph of empty virus particles of the child pathogen enterovirus 71. These are being developed by Professor Ian Jones and his colleagues in the School of Biological Sciences as a potential safe form of vaccine. They are a recombinant product and so non-infectious but as faithful mimics of the authentic virus they make an excellent vaccine candidate. They are made by using a carrier virus, called a baculovirus and some of these structures are also visible (labelled). The inset shows individual assembled particles which have the dimensions expected of the real virus. The work is funded by the MRC.