Zika virus as a pale blue dot

Detailed animation of the Zika virus

Plenty has been said elsewhere as this visualisation has already featured in New Scientist, the Los Angeles Times and Mashable, but Visual Science asked me to take a look and it’s nice enough to share.

The model is part of Visual Science’s Viral Park project, which also includes models of HIV, influenza A/H1N1, Ebola, papilloma, and adenovirus virions.  It is the most accurate model of the Zika viral particle currently available based on structural bioinformatics and reflecting current understanding of the viral architecture with 360 distinct surface protein structures, the lipid envelope, and the likely structure of genetic material in complex with capsid proteins.