To understand the impact of SARS-CoV-2 at the cellular level, a group of scientists led by Carolyn Larabell at Berkeley Lab, in collaboration with investigators at the University of Heidelberg, safely visualized COVID-infected lung cells and identified the major hallmarks of infection.
The researchers collected and analyzed 17 individual cells using soft x-ray tomography (SXT) at Advanced Light Source Beamline 2.1. “The methodology is quantitative,” said Larabell, “and allows the imaging of whole cells in three dimensions without the need for chemical stains or the generation of multiple thin (80–100 nm) plastic sections.”