Thread by @laurenjyoung617

All of those stunning @CDCgov public domain pics you see in news stories of viruses, like the flu, Ebola, and HIV, take a lot of technique and artistic skill. I got to profile electron microscopist Cynthia Goldsmith who imaged them. scifri.me/wz1

This is Cynthia, using an electron microscope with Dr. Roosecelis Martines. Cynthia has been been capturing these deadly viruses under the lens @CDCgov since 1983.

A few of the amazing projects she's worked on:
- Examined the fatal strains of Ebola during the 1995 outbreak
- Oversaw the first SEM image of HIV in 1984
- Was the first to identify coronavirus (pictured here) as the virus that causes SARS in 2003

One of my favorite stories Cynthia shared was about when she got the opportunity to image a recreated 1918 influenza virus—yes, the one that killed at least 20 million during the Spanish Flu pandemic.

In 2005, she worked with @CDCgov flu microbiologist Terrence Tumpey and his team, which reconstructed the genome of the 1918 flu virus from a victim's lung tissue preserved in permafrost in Brevig Mission, Alaska. That sample had been preserved since 1997. science.sciencemag.org/content/310/57…

As Cynthia says: Viruses "can be beautiful, even though the disease can be devastating. But they can be beautiful.”

Read her full her story on @scifri here! sciencefriday.com/articles/how-t…

Forgot to add! There are many other cool images on @CDCgov's Public Health Image Library! All are free and most are in public domain. Thanks for the reminder @MikeHinko! phil.cdc.gov/default.aspx