High-tech images show how viruses infect cells

As people around the world contend with illnesses caused by viruses, including this year’s strain of the flu or influenza, researchers continue to study how viruses work and how they manage to invade living cells in everything from bacteria to human organs. University of Texas researchers recently collaborated on an innovative technique that allowed them to see a virus in the act of infecting a cell. At the University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Jun Liu uses a powerful electron microscope to examine E. coli bacteria and the tiny T-7 virus that infects them. Liu says until now, scientists could only speculate on how this virus injected its genetic material into another cell, because it happens in an instant. “Before they inject in, they do not have a channel. After they inject in, they actually degrade the channel, so you never have a chance to see it,” Liu said. But in a collaborative...