With the help of a microscope that illuminates only the cell’s surface, scientists at Rockefeller University have for the first time recorded video that shows “hundreds of thousands of molecules coming together in a living cell to form a single particle of the virus that has, in less than 25 years, claimed more than 25 million lives: HIV.”
Below is the actual footage:
A video from the total internal reflection microscope shows individual HIV particles (white spots) assembling on the surface of an infected cell. As the white spots get brighter and brighter, more and more viral proteins are recruited to the cell’s surface. Source: Rockefeller University
Press release: Scientists image a single HIV particle being born