Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev said on Friday that his team aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has begun growing COVID-19 spike protein crystals to study the mechanism behind viral infection.

"The experiment to grow coronavirus protein crystals has started on the ISS!" he wrote on Telegram.

The viral protein was delivered to the orbital outpost by the Soyuz MS-19 mission on 18 March. The results of the experiment will be sent back to Earth with Russia's Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei later this month.

Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin announced in January the preparations for an experiment to bioprint receptor-binding domain protein in zero gravity. This spike protein allows the virus to gain entry to a host cell and is key to understanding how it can be stopped.

Source: RIA Novosti

Related Links
Roscosmos
Epidemics on Earth - Bird Flu, HIV/AIDS, Ebola

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

China locks down city of 9 million as virus ripples across country
Beijing (AFP) March 22, 2022
China locked down an industrial city of nine million people overnight and reported more than 4,000 virus cases on Tuesday, as the nation's "zero-Covid" strategy is confronted by an Omicron wave. Health authorities reported 4,770 new infections across the country, the bulk in the northeastern province of Jilin, as the city of Shenyang in neighbouring Liaoning province was ordered to lock down late Monday. China has moved fast in recent weeks to snuff out virus clusters with a pick-and-mix of hype ... read more