The Swiss virologist, Professor Dr. Volker Thiel, is in great demand. After he was able to create the first synthetic clone of a coronavirus at the end of March, he is now even world famous.
In March, Professor Thiel and his team worked on real coronaviruses almost day and night in the Mittelhäusern high-security laboratory. He was supported not only by his team, but also by BINDER freezers, which generate a temperature of minus 80 ° C and thus create the right storage temperature for coronaviruses. So far, the virologist has only had good experiences with the equipment from global market leader BINDER from Tuttlingen.
Thiel has been working on coronaviruses for many years and in the past he was sometimes looked at from an angle because it was assumed that this type of virus did not play a major role. But Sars and Mers, who also belong to the corona virus group, taught the public better.
Yes, viruses like the coronavirus are extremely small. “One milliliter of sea water contains a million viruses,” explains Volker Thiel. Viruses have their own blueprint and they need cells to multiply, the scientist continues. And how did the name coronavirus actually come about? Thiel also has an answer to this: "Corona is called crown, because the virus gives off a decorative image under the electron microscope," says Thiel.
Incidentally, Professor Thiel and his research group are currently working on pharmaceutical companies that want to bring a vaccine to market as quickly as possible. "We manufacture mucous membranes, infect them with the virus and try to find out at what temperatures these viruses multiply."
And although virologist Thiel is making good progress with his team, he does not believe that a vaccine will be available for the general population before 2021. He himself would definitely get vaccinated, because he is firmly convinced: "Without the vaccine, the change nothing in the current situation. ”He also agrees with virologist Christian Drosten from the Berlin Charité, with whom he also works on a regular basis.
