Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

The sprint to solve coronavirus protein structures — and disarm them with drugs

Stopping the pandemic could rely on breakneck efforts to visualize SARS-CoV-2 proteins and use them to design drugs and vaccines.
  1. Megan Scudellari

    1. Megan Scudellari is a science journalist in Boston, Massachusetts.

    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed  Google Scholar

3D visualisation of the full exterior of SARS-CoV-2 virus within atmospheric space

Lying in bed on the night of 10 January, scrolling through news on his smartphone, Andrew Mesecar got an alert. He sat up. It was here. The complete genome of a coronavirus causing a cluster of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan, China, had just been posted online.

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Learn more

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Nature 581, 252-255 (2020)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-020-01444-z

Updates & Corrections

  • Correction 19 May 2020: An earlier version of this article gave the wrong location for Karla Satchell.

References

  1. Kirchdoerfer, R. N. et al. Nature 531, 118–121 (2016).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  2. Pallesen, J. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 114, E7348–E7357 (2017).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Jin, Z. et al. Nature https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2223-y (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Zhang, L. et al. Science 368, 409–412 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. McLellan, J. S. et al. Science 342, 592–598 (2013).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Wrapp, D. et al. Science 367, 1260–1263 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Shang, J. et al. Nature 581, 221–224 (2020).

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  8. Gao, Y. et al. Science 368, 779–782 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Yin, W. et al. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abc1560 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Dai, W. et al. Science https://doi.org/10.1126/science.abb4489 (2020).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Subjects

Latest on:

Nature Careers

Jobs

  • Chief Operating Officer

    Salary: £425,000 per annumContract: PermanentClosing date: Sunday 22nd September Founded in 1936, Wellcome is a politically and financially independen

    England, London

    WellcomeTrust

  • Executive Director, Discovery

    Salary: £400,000 per annumContract: PermanentClosing date: Sunday 22nd September Founded in 1936, Wellcome is a politically and financially independe

    London, England

    WellcomeTrust

  • Executive Director, Solutions

    Salary: £400,000 per annumContract: PermanentClosing date: Sunday 22nd September Founded in 1936, Wellcome is a politically and financially independen

    England, London

    WellcomeTrust

  • Al Medical Engineering at School of Biomedical Engineering

    Tsinghua BME offers faculty positions in the emerging research direction of AI Medical Engineering

    Beijing, China

    Tsinghua University

  • Assistant Professor in Forest Genetics

    Assistant Professor position in Forest Genetics with focus on genetic biodiversity in relation to forestry at Umeå Plant Science Centre

    Umeå (Kommun), Västerbotten (SE)

    Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU)

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing

Search

Advanced search

Quick links