Potato virus X

Name of the microorganism: Potato virus X (genus Potexviruses; family Alphaflexiviridae)

ENEA, Italian National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development, Laboratory Biotechnologies, Biotechnologies and Agroindustry Division, Department for Sustainability, C.R. Casaccia, Via Anguillarese 301, 00123, Rome, Italy
Dipartimento Scienze Agrarie e Ambientali, Università degli Studi di Milano, Via G. Celoria 2, 20133, Milan, Italy

Research in nanotechnologies demonstrates that nanometer-sized particles can be used as carriers for vaccine/drug delivery. Even viruses are nanoparticles and may offer answers to health challenges. This may seem a madness as we associate viruses to diseases, but each virus is specialized in infecting a specific organism and is harmless for all the others. This is why plant viruses that can be produced at low cost using plants, like the one in this photo specialized in infecting potatoes, are currently studied as delivery tools for biomedical applications.