(Yicai Global) Sept. 16 -- Chinese scientists have revealed the three-dimensional detailed structure of the intact SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, the State Key Laboratory for Diagnosis and Treatment of Infectious Diseases of Zhejiang University announced on its official WeChat account today.

The work was made public in a research paper titled Molecular Architecture of the SARS-CoV-2 Virus that was published on Cell magazine’s website on Sept. 14. 

It reveals the virus’ structure at an unprecedented resolution and illustrates how the virus packs its about 30-kilobyte-long single segmented Ribonucleic Acid in a roughly 80-nanometer diameter lumen. These are of huge importance to understanding its biological characteristics, the design of vaccines and the research and development of antiviral drugs.

Among others, the paper was co-authored by Li Lanjuan, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the lab’s head, and Li Sai, a researcher at Tsinghua University’s School of Life Sciences.

Real-time statistics from the Johns Hopkins University show that as of yesterday confirmed Covid-19 cases worldwide totaled more than 29.25 million, with 930,000 deaths.

Editor: Peter Thomas