{"id":25366,"date":"2021-04-08T08:16:45","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T06:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/?p=25366"},"modified":"2021-10-05T10:49:31","modified_gmt":"2021-10-05T08:49:31","slug":"semmelweis-paper-on-coronavirus-makes-the-cover-ofcover-page-of-prestigious-journal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/2021\/04\/semmelweis-paper-on-coronavirus-makes-the-cover-ofcover-page-of-prestigious-journal\/","title":{"rendered":"Semmelweis paper on coronavirus makes the cover of prestigious journal"},"content":{"rendered":"

A publication<\/span> on the coronavirus by researchers at Semmelweis University <\/span>authored <\/span>in collaboration with researchers from the National Public Health <\/span>Center<\/span> and the National <\/span>Bios<\/span>afety Laboratory <\/span>has been published on t<\/span>he <\/span>cover<\/span>\u00a0of the prestigious scientific journal <\/span>Nano Letters<\/span><\/em>. The working group led by <\/span>Dr. <\/span>Mikl\u00f3s Kellermayer, Dean of the Faculty of Medicine, Director of the Department of Biophysics and Radiation Biology, was the first to examine the structure of an active, infectious coronavirus. As an <\/span>extention of<\/span> the study, the properties of the British virus variant are analyzed.<\/span> <\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"Last summer, a working group led by <\/span>Dr. <\/span>Mikl\u00f3s Kellermayer began examining the structure and <\/span>the <\/span>nanomechanical properties of <\/span>the<\/span> novel coronavirus using <\/span>atomic force microscop<\/span>y (AFM)<\/span>. The study is unique in the sense that it was the first time that the active and infectious virus was studied instead of <\/span>a <\/span>fixed or frozen virus <\/span>particle<\/span>. <\/span>Based on the information of the Dean of the Faculty of Medicine<\/span>, no similar study has been performed since then. The results suggest that the virus is self-healing and may be one of the most resilient biological organisms known to man<\/span>kind<\/span>, and that the <\/span>corona-shaped layer of<\/span> spikes <\/span>is<\/span> extremely <\/span>dynamic<\/span>. Their study showed that the coronavirus is easily compressed, but it restores its shape <\/span>like a rubber ball, and <\/span>its<\/span> structure is not damaged by <\/span>physical impact<\/span>. The research was introduced in detail in this article.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Last year the results were published on bioRxiv, a platform of scientific database, and after the usual evaluation process, a prestigious scientific journal also accepted the publication.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cNano Letters<\/em> is one of the top journals in nanosciences, whose impact factor, indicating <\/span>the citation average number of <\/span>the <\/span>citations of <\/span>articles, <\/span>is above 11, which is <\/span>very high\u201d, pointed out <\/span>D<\/span>r. Mikl\u00f3s Kellermayer.<\/span><\/p>\n

The importance of their research is further emphasized by the fact that it has made the front\u00a0page of the latest issue of the journal, along with the four other publications<\/span>.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"\"The cover image of the study shows how the approx<\/span>imately<\/span> 80-nanometer-wide SARS-CoV-2 particle is <\/span>indented<\/span> by an even smaller <\/span>AFM tip.<\/span> The illustration was created by a Spanish graphic company who have an excellent portfolio of virology related images. <\/span>A<\/span> short animation of the research was also made, which was first presented at the opening presentation of the Semmelweis Symposium last November.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr. Mikl\u00f3s Kellermayer said that studies on the coronavirus are continuing, and the British virus variant is currently being analyzed on fixed samples for the time being.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur initial results suggest that this mutant is smaller than the wild type, which is quite surprising. The exact reasons are not yet known\u201d, <\/span>he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

However, the smaller size of the spherical particles suggests that the surface area of <\/span>t<\/span>he British virus variant has increased <\/span>in terms of <\/span>mass or volume. This means that although the surface area of <\/span>i<\/span>ndividual vir<\/span>ions<\/span> is smaller, their total surface area is larger. This may be related to its property of being more contagious than the original pathogen.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The publication published in Nano Letters is available here.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00c1d\u00e1m Szab\u00f3
\nPhoto: Attila Kov\u00e1cs \u2013 Semmelweis University (photo taken earlier)
\nIllustration: Nano Letters
\nTranslation: Katalin Ill\u00e9s-Romh\u00e1nyi<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A coronavirus publication by researchers at Semmelweis University has been published on the cover page of Nano Letters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":101126,"featured_media":25364,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,2],"tags":[127,29],"class_list":["post-25366","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science","category-news","tag-coronavirus","tag-research"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/101126"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25366"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28151,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25366\/revisions\/28151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/semmelweis.hu\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}