Russian cosmonauts begin growing COVID-19 protein crystals in space

Russian cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev said on Friday that his team aboard the International Space Station (ISS) has begun growing COVID-19 spike protein crystals to study the mechanism behind viral infection.

"The experiment to grow coronavirus protein crystals has started on the ISS!" he wrote on Telegram.

The viral protein was delivered to the orbital outpost by the Soyuz MS-19 mission on 18 March. The results of the experiment will be sent back to Earth with Russia's Anton Shkaplerov and Pyotr Dubrov and NASA astronaut Mark Vande Hei later this month.

Russian space agency chief Dmitry Rogozin announced in January the preparations for an experiment to bioprint receptor-binding domain protein in zero gravity. This spike protein allows the virus to gain entry to a host cell and is key to understanding how it can be stopped.

Source: RIA Novosti