Viral diseases are an important cause of mortality and carry a significant social and economic cost to humanity. The cost of influenza virus care in 2018 was estimated to be €29 billion, or 2% of EU healthcare costs. Other viruses, such as hepatitis C virus (HCV), with incidence of 8.7 per 100 000 people in EU, can cause lifelong infection and is a major cause of liver cancer. The SARS-CoV-2 global pandemic will probably lead to 50-fold or more increase in flu healthcare costs in Europe. Some viruses, such as herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1), can be used to kill cancer cells. Overall, viruses have an important impact on human health and the costs of development of antiviral therapies and virus mediated cancer therapy are considerable, in terms of economic, physical, social and mental well-being.
Analysis of 3D biological cell samples is critical for understanding the mechanisms of viral disease and for development of novel therapeutics. Soft X-ray microscopy (SXM) is the unique technology that can image whole intact cells in 3D under normal and pathological conditions without labelling or fixation, at high throughput and spatial resolution. The main challenge of SXM is that the photonic illumination required for imaging is currently only available at synchrotrons and only a fraction of the infectious disease research community has been able to access this imaging modality.
The European Union Horizon 2020 project called CoCID, the ‘Compact Cell Imaging Device’ will address this challenge by developing a lab-scale soft X-ray microscope for 3D imaging of whole cells in the laboratory. The capabilities of this device will be demonstrated through a series of virology use cases to generate new scientific knowledge on the viral life cycle and host cell response to viral infection.
