---
title: "Watch the First Video of a Virus Growing in Real-Time"
description: "Researchers at Harvard claim to have captured the formation of a virus in real-time for the first time ever using a special microscopy technique."
date: "2019-10-04"
modified: "2019-10-04"
authors:
  - name: "Victor Tangermann"
    job_title: "Senior Editor"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/victor"
url: "https://futurism.com/neoscope/first-video-virus-assembling-harvard"
categories:
  - "Health & Medicine"
  - "Medical"
  - "Pathogens"
  - "Viruses"
tags:
  - "RNA"
  - "virus"
  - "viruses"
---

# Watch the First Video of a Virus Growing in Real-Time

![](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/first-video-virus-assembling-harvard.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: CDC/Victor Tangermann\</em\>*

For the first time, researchers have captured the formation of individual [viruses](<https://futurism.com/neoscope/virus-eavesdropping-kill-bacteria>) on camera in real-time — and the footage could yield new insights into how best to fight the bugs.

In a [paper](<https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2019/09/27/1909223116>) published recently in the journal *Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences*, the team from Harvard's John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences details how it obtained the footage using a highly specialized microscope and a technique called "interferometric scattering microscopy."

"Our technique gives the first window into how viruses assemble," researcher Vinothan Manoharan said in a [press release](<https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-10/hjap-fvo100419.php>), "and reveals the kinetics and pathways in quantitative detail."

https://youtu.be/wlvd7jIc2I8

The team focused its study on the RNA virus, the most common type of virus on Earth and the kind responsible for the common cold, polio, and a host of other diseases.

The dark spots in the video are, in fact, soccer-ball type structures of hexagonal and pentagonal rings of proteins that encase the RNA virus. The resulting shell around the virus is called a "capsid."

According to Manoharan, the pattern in which these spots appear as the virus assembles is already uncovering clues as to how to fight some types of viruses.

"If nuclei form too quickly, complete capsids can’t grow," he said in the press release. "That observation might give us some insights into how to derail the assembly of pathogenic viruses."

## Author
I've been at Futurism since 2017, where my role has evolved to encompass design, writing, and increasingly editing. I've always been fascinated by space exploration and advanced transportation, which I've leaned into by interviewing luminaries in those fields while closely following the dimensions of policy and regulation that allow next-generation projects to succeed -- or, sometimes, to fail. I'm also keenly interested in the effects of generative AI on society, policies, and democratic institutions, as well as clean energy, physics and biology, and the vagaries of tech leadership. My work for Futurism has been cited by publications including Ars Technica, Gizmodo, PC Magazine, Jalopnik, Fox News, and the New York Post. I spent my childhood living in locations including Manila, the Philippines, and Geneva, Switzerland, attended McGill University, and now live in Toronto, Canada. Before Futurism I worked at AskMen and a small photography studio. In my free time, I'm an avid gardener, foodie, and craft beer lover, as well as a maker of artisanal hot pepper sauces. I have a magnificent dog named Freida.

### Author social links  
[Bluesky](<https://bsky.app/profile/vtanger.bsky.social>)