Researchers in the United States have shown that genes from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) - the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) - can be integrated into the genome of infected human cells. The team says the viral RNA can be expressed as chimeric transcripts with fused cellular and viral sequences.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has led to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, severely affecting public health and the global economy. Adaptive immunity plays a crucial role in fighting against SARS-CoV-2 infection and directly influences the clinical outcomes of patients.

Just how are things organized in a living cell? What's next to what, in three dimensions? That is, of course, a really hard question to answer, but we're going to have to be able to answer it in a lot of contexts (and at high resolution) if we're ever going to understand what's going on down there.