In September 2020, the annual Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (EG VCBM) took place in Tübingen, Germany. VCBM addresses the state of the art in visual computing research with a strong focus on applications in biology and medicine. It provides an interdisciplinary forum for experts (researchers and practitioners) from visualization, visual analytics, computer graphics, image processing, computer vision, human computer interfaces as well as experts from biology and medicine, jointly working on next generation visual computing solutions for medicine, healthcare and the biotechnology sector.
With our illustration of a SARS-CoV-2 particle, we have participated in the Image Contest of 10th Eurographics Workshop on Visual Computing for Biology and Medicine (VCBM 2020). We were awarded with the People’s Choice Award chosen by the attendees of the conference. The image shows part of the SARS-CoV-2 life-cycle, which happens in the epithelial cells of lungs of COVID-19 patients. We can see a virion’s spike protein binding to a receptor on the cell surface, another virion entering the cell by fusing with its membrane, and in the background, many new virions exiting an infected cell.