Each colored stripe in the image above represents a unique virus particle, with the width of each stripe reflecting the number of copies, in a hamster infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. Jacco Boon, PhD, a professor of medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases, and colleagues have developed a tool to study how viruses spread by “barcoding” individual virus particles and tracking their transmission from individual to individual. The technique, reported Jan. 15 in Science Advances, could help scientists better understand how viruses move through a population and the effects of natural immunity and vaccination on viral transmission — information that could be invaluable in an epidemic.
Jacco Boon, PhD and colleagues have developed a tool to study how viruses spread
