molecules

One can only be amazed at the 3D rendering (2D on these images) of complex molecules such as proteins and DNA. Presently one can see these amazing atom-precise representations of the spikes of Covid-19. This precision is mostly obtained through crystallography.

And computers. 

Crystallography provides specific exclusive patterns of molecules (crystallised) that are now processed by computers. Before such, it took many days and weeks to compute the structures that had been studied. As well super X-ray machines that would kill you in an instant are used.

The whole thing started with Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen who discovered the x-rays. His first image showed that these rays could penetrate through matter.

Wilhelm Conrad Röntgen (/ˈrɛntɡən, -dʒən, ˈrʌnt-/;[1] German pronunciation: [ˈvɪlhɛlm ˈʁœntɡən] (listen); 27 March 1845 – 10 February 1923) was a German mechanical engineer and physicist,[2] who, on 8 November 1895, produced and detected electromagnetic radiation in a wavelength range known as X-rays or Röntgen rays, an achievement that earned him the inaugural Nobel Prize in Physics in 1901.[3] In honour of Röntgen's accomplishments, in 2004 the International Union of Pure and Applied Chemistry (IUPAC) named element 111, roentgenium, a radioactive element with multiple unstable isotopes, after him. The unit of measurement roentgen was also named after him.

Röntgen inherited two million Reichsmarks after his father's death.[14] For ethical reasons, Röntgen did not seek patents for his discoveries, holding the view that it should be publicly available without charge. After receiving his Nobel prize money, Röntgen donated the 50,000 Swedish krona to research at the University of Würzburg. Although he accepted the honorary degree of Doctor of Medicine, he rejected an offer of lower nobility, or Niederer Adelstitel, denying the preposition von (meaning "of") as a nobiliary particle (i.e., von Röntgen)

Then came a fellow called Laue…

Max Theodor Felix von Laue (German: [maks fɔn ˈlaʊ̯ə] (listen); 9 October 1879 – 24 April 1960) was a German physicist who received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1914 for his discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals. In addition to his scientific endeavors with contributions in optics, crystallography, quantum theory, superconductivity, and the theory of relativity, he had a number of administrative positions which advanced and guided German scientific research and development during four decades. A strong objector to Nazism, he was instrumental in re-establishing and organizing German science after World War II.

Soon after Max Theodor Felix von Laue discovery of the diffraction of X-rays by crystals, the father William Henry and son William Lawrence Bragg team came on the scene…

In physics, Bragg's law, Wulff–Bragg's condition or Laue-Bragg interference, a special case of Laue diffraction, gives the angles for coherent scattering of waves from a crystal lattice. It encompasses the superposition of wave fronts scattered by lattice planes, leading to a strict relation between wavelength and scattering angle, or else to the wavevector transfer with respect to the crystal lattice. Such law had initially been formulated for X-rays upon crystals but is moreover relevant for all kind of quantum beams, such as neutron and electron waves on atomic spacing, as well as for visual light on artificial periodic micro-scale lattices.

Sir William Lawrence Bragg, Kt, CH, OBE, MC, FRS[1] (31 March 1890 – 1 July 1971) was an Australian-born [in Adelaide] British physicist and X-ray crystallographer, discoverer (1912) of Bragg's law of X-ray diffraction, which is basic for the determination of crystal structure. He was joint recipient (with his father, William Henry Bragg) of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1915, "For their services in the analysis of crystal structure by means of X-rays";[4] an important step in the development of X-ray crystallography.

Bragg was knighted in 1941.[4] As of 2021, he is the youngest ever Nobel laureate in physics, having received the award at the age of 25 years.[5] 

Bragg was the director of the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, when the discovery of the structure of DNA was reported by James D. Watson and Francis Crick in February 1953.

And within a few hours (minutes?), we know the structure of Covid-19…

Amazing...

How structural biologists revealed the new coronavirus’s structure so quickly

Scientists detail the steps they took to determine the structures of SARS-CoV-2’s proteins and the next steps toward COVID-19 treatments

by Laura Howes

May 2, 2020 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 98, Issue 17

When the government in Wuhan, China, confirmed on Dec. 31, 2019, that authorities there were treating dozens of cases of pneumonia of unknown origin, researchers who remembered the severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak of 2003 were uneasy. Was this another coronavirus, like the one that spurred that incident? Slowly, concern spread throughout the scientific community, and labs that had already been studying coronaviruses began to get primed.

Jason S. McLellan, a structural biologist at the University of Texas at Austin, remembers getting a call while on a skiing vacation with his family. On the other end of the line was Barney S. Graham, deputy director of the US National Institutes of Health’s Vaccine Research Center. The pair had worked together in the past, and Graham told McLellan: “It looks like it’s coronavirus. Are you ready to get to work on it?” McLellan says he messaged his team via the mobile service WhatsApp and told them to get ready: “We’re going to race as soon as we get the sequence.”

The sequence McLellan was referring to was the genomic sequence of the new coronavirus that Graham told him about. With the virus’s genome in hand, McLellan and his team would be able to synthesize its most vital proteins and then determine their structures, an important first step in finding therapeutics to fight a pathogen. By early January, the wait was over. A team led by researchers at Fudan University had published the genome, sharing it publicly online so that labs around the world could leap into action before the related paper was published (Nature 2020, DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2008-3).

And McLellan’s team did indeed race. The research group was one of the first to publish a cryo-electron microscopy structure of one of the new coronavirus’s proteins. The scientists determined the configuration of the virus’s spike protein, a biomolecule that decorates the outer shell of the virus and enables it to fuse with and enter human cells to cause infection (Science 2020, DOI: 10.1126/science.abb2507).

Unlike human genetic information, which is encoded in double-stranded DNA, the new coronavirus, like all coronaviruses, stores its genetic information in a single strand of RNA. The human genome contains around 3 billion base pairs tightly packaged inside the nucleus of each of our cells. In contrast, the new virus’s RNA genome has fewer than 30,000 bases.

…

Today, a lot of the work of protein crystallography is automated. Liquid-handling robots can perform miniature crystallization experiments to find the right solution conditions for growing protein crystals. Synchrotron X-ray sources equipped with microfocused beamlines and cryocooling instruments protect protein crystals from radiation damage, enabling their analysis. Data can now be gathered rapidly from crystals that would have been discarded as too fragile or small 10 years ago. Today, solid-state hybrid pixel detectors on X-ray instruments can capture more than 100 diffraction pattern images per second. “If the crystals are good,” says Manfred Weiss, head of macromolecular crystallography at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin für Materialien und Energie (HZB), “you can collect a good data set within 10–15 min or so.” Fifteen years ago, the same data collection could have taken a few hours.

Read more:

https://cen.acs.org/analytical-chemistry/structural-biology/structural-biologists-revealed-new-coronaviruss/98/i17

Is this important to Democracy? Knowing/discovering what we have is scientific, fiddling with what to do about it is POLITICAL. Mistakes can be made and will be made. Throw ScoMo out...

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