iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

We get to work with so many cool cell models: Primary, immortalized, transformed... Brain, lung, liver... Human, mouse, reptile... But HEK... ...293Ts can be pretty cool too! 😉 💜 Purple: Actin 💛 Yellow: Ectopically expressed protein 🤍 White: DNA 🔬: Joe McKellar #FluorescenceFriday #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Nuclear Stars and Viral Auroras ✨ Red-hot nuclear constellations are frozen inside grey microcosmic vaults, while a bright viral aurora washes across the cytoplasm 🔴|🟠: Mx1-L7A 🔵: Influenza A virus nucleoprotein ⚪: Nuclei 🔬: Joe McKellar #SciArt #MicroscopyMonday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Wild vs. Domesticated 🐯🐱 Immortalized cell lines live a cozy life, but these rugged primary mouse ear skin fibroblasts vibe differently: 🩷: Actin 🩵: DNA Look at those actin cables and cells climbing over each other, they haven't forgotten where they came from! 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Welcome to The Grid 🕹️⚡ Mouse cells playing TRON 8 hours post-infection with VSV. 🟧 VSV-G: Membranes 🟦 GFP: Cytoplasm ⬜ DAPI: Cores The viral program has rewritten the host code. Orange circuits queuing at the perimeter. Next sector loading... 🔬: Joe McKellar #SciArt #MicroscopyMonday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 04/09/2026

Cellular Wormhole 🌀 The images I've been processing recently have me in a major sci-fi mood! A glowing microscopic wormhole: 🟢: Actin 🟣: Tubulin The microtubule web pulling toward the dark core gives event horizon vibes 👀 Where does it lead? 🔬: Joe McKellar #FluorescenceFriday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

Actin in a fibroblast for #MicroscopyMonday. What type of actin structure is your favourite? :) 🔬 : Joe McKellar, Viroscope Imaging

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

Cellular Uniqueness 🧬✨ Clonal cell lines can seem uniform, but under the scope, every cell has its own spatial secrets. 💜 Magenta: Membrane 💛 Yellow: DNA 🩵 Cyan: Microtubules Notice the two microtubule exclusion zones? What's your theory? 👇 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Want to catch a judge's eye in this year's Proteintech Microscopy Image Competition? As guest judge, I teamed up with @proteintech.bsky.social on a cheat sheet for winning SciArt. Don't let your best shots slumber, show us what you've got! 🔗: www.ptglab.com/news/microsc...

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

End of a Microscopic Galaxy 🌌🔥 This high-density neuronal culture screams cosmic web collapsing into stellar fire. 🔥Fiery Orange: Actin ❄️Cool Blue: DNA Sometimes, looking down through a microscope allows us to look up at the cosmos. 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Viral Takeover ☣️ A microscopic siege frozen in time, as cellular life gives way to viral progeny. HEK293T cells infected with VSV: 🔴 Viral glycoprotein 🔵 DNA 🔬: Joe McKellar, @viroscope.bsky.social

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 18/08/2026

Cellular Ballet 💃 Two boa constrictor brain cells reaching through the dark to perform a microscopic ballet. 🟢 Membranes 🟡 DNA ⚪ Actin The dance of life is always a spectacle to behold. 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 10/08/2026

Reconstituting mitosis ✨ I recreated a full cell division sequence using 9 separate cells I found from old files! 🟠 DNA ⚪ Tubulin (look the different structures!) 🟣 Actin Which stage is your favorite? 👇 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

*cell culture vibes* 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

Cosmic horror at the sub-cellular scale 🌠🐙 Mutant mouse Mx1 (green) forming tentacle-like structures crawling through a genomic portal (pink; DNA). Like Cthulhu breaching the barriers between realms... Years later, these geometries remain unexplained. 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 20/07/2026

The hidden geometry of the cytoskeleton 📐✨ Swipe to see the weird and wonderful world of Septin geometries in this giant human cell: 🟠Septin 7 🔵Actin 🟣DNA 🔬Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 14/07/2026

🔵 ⚪ 🔴 A fitting cellular tricolour: blue microtubule highways, white DNA cores, and red membranes. Endlessly grateful to France for the possibilities it has opened up for @viroscope.bsky.social. Bonne fête du 14 Juillet à tous ! #14Juillet #BastilleDay #FranceScience #Microscopy #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

Painting the cellular cosmos🎨🔬 In science, the boundary between experiment and art can dissolve. Cells become a canvas in total darkness where fluorophores are paint and lasers are our brush. 🟩 DNA 🟧 Actin 🟦 Microtubules 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 23/06/2026

Transport through the microcosmos ✨ In a living cell, a standstill is an alien concept. Molecular machines travel tirelessly through the internal geography. 🟧 Microtubules: Structural hyperloops. 🟪 Vesicles: Cargo pods racing around the grid with incredible precision. 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 16/06/2026

The inner cellular cosmos ✨ Mapping cells to bring an infrastructure that operates in the dark to the light. ◻️ Nucleus: Quiet gravitational center 🟦 Actin: Radiant structural cables 🟧 Septin: Reinforcing scaffolding 🟪 Membranes: Glowing cytoplasmic network Follow for more SciArt! 🔬: Joe McKellar

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 12/06/2026

10h into active viral pathogenesis. Lung cells infected with VSV, showing vesicle trafficking under siege. 🩷 GFP: Replicating virus 💙 Rab11: Endosome network Clear cytopathic distress: extensive membrane blebbing & abnormal nuclear shapes. 🔬 @viroscope.bsky.social. 1 slice, 1 img/sec.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 09/06/2026

SARS-CoV-2 replicating inside primary Human Airway Epithelia 🟩 Actin: Highlight brush-like cilia and cell-cell junctions 🟪 dsRNA: Replicating virus This image made the cover of Journal of Virology for April 2021.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 29/05/2026

#FluorescenceFriday A Maximum Projection of three U2OS cells capturing two different steps of cell division. Sister cells are split but tethered by a midbody remnant. 💛 Actin: Spiky/explosive 💙 DNA: Varing conformations 🖤 Microtubules: Dark depth Separation takes time.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 22/05/2026

Inner Space: A Cellular Cosmos Two human fibroblasts mimicking cosmic solar bodies. 💛 Actin: Radiating star filaments 🩵 Tubulin: Plasma highways ❤️ DNA: Crimson core We are a universe ourselves. At Viroscope Imaging, we make data breathtaking. Let's elevate your R&D! 🔬 #FluorescenceFriday #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

The art of the waiting game. Rodent deltavirus (RDeV) is a satellite virus. It doesn't kill, but moves in like a quiet tenant, replicating while waiting for a partner in crime, a helper virus, to provide its transport. 🟨 Actin 🟦 Delta Antigen ⬜ DNA 🔬: Imaged by me.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 05/05/2026

Building a cellular village 🔬🏘️ You've seen a Tasmanian Devil, but not like this! This super-res cluster of fibroblasts shows one cell building a new unit for the community. 💛 Actin 🩷 DNA 🩵 Tubulin The cyan mitotic spindle is ready for the heavy lifting! Fav mitosis stage? ⬇️

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

My image, "Cellular Cosmic Body," has received an Honorable Mention in the Evident Image of the Year Award. Highlighting radiating Actin and delicate Septin filaments Want your research to have a similar treatment? DM me to collaborate! #SciArt #Microscopy #EvidentIOTY

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

The high-speed logistics of a lung cancer cell. Watch GFP-Rab25 (Gold) move cargo through the internal recycling pathway of A549 cells. Static maps are great, but time-lapse shows the real traffic. Want your science/tech to be highlighted? DM me at Viroscope!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

Sometimes, the data can wait✨ A COS-7 cell reminding us that biology is art. 🩵 Tubulin: Cyan sunburst 💛 Actin: Yellow lace 🩷 DNA Happy #FluorescenceFriday! I turn raw data into cinematic visuals at Viroscope. If you want your science/tech to stand out, reach out! #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 21/04/2026

The anatomical landscape of a zebrafish tail 🔬🐟 🔵 Nuclei: Hundreds of individuals in a dense tissular landscape. 🟠 Microtubules: Notice the axonal structural repeats! Want your science/tech to be highlighted? Reach out to me ! #SciArt #Zebrafish

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 17/04/2026

If a cyberpunk metropolis was engineered by biology, it’d look like this. 🔵 Actin: neon structural cables 🟣 MX1: localized defense matrix 🟠 DNA: reactor cores Want your science/tech to look like a movie poster? Reach out to me! 🔬 #SciArt #FluorescenceFriday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

Tracking the rapid recycling pathways of a living cell. This time-lapse captures an A549 lung cell expressing GFP-Rab11a. These fast-moving puncta are recycling endosomes, tirelessly shuttling sorted cargo back out to the plasma membrane. Check out the tubulations also! #SciArt #LiveCellImaging

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 03/04/2026

Cellular Liquid Gold 🔬 This time-lapse shows an A549 cell over-expressing Sec61B, outlining the Endoplasmic Reticulum. Imaged at 1 frame per 500ms, it reveals just how violently active our cellular infrastructure really is! What is your favorite organelle to image? 👇 #SciArt #FluorescenceFriday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 31/03/2026

Mapping active herpesvirus replication inside human neurons 🧠🔬 A max intensity projection of HSV-1 infecting LUHMES cells. 🔵 Actin: The dense structural network. 🔴 HSV-1: Hotspots of active viral replication. Infections are undesirable, but beautiful! #sciart #virology

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 20/03/2026

Thrilled to share that the French journal "Virologie" has chosen my work as the official 2026 cover!🔬 ➡️To see the original black-and-white capture. It shows primary boa constrictor brain cells infected for 1h with VSV. Thank you to @sfvirologie.bsky.social and @sebnisole.bsky.social ! #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 13/03/2026

A solar flare erupting on a glass coverslip ☀️🔬 This mouse cell has broken symmetry, erupting to drive itself across the surface. 🧡 Actin: Sweeping golden kinetic energy 🩵 Septin 7: Swirling membrane regulation 🩷 Lipids: Burning metabolic fuel 💙 DNA: The anchored core #SciArt #FluorescenceFriday

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

Glimpse of an alien shoreline. Not a topographical map of a distant planet, but the extreme boundary of a fibroblast cell! 🟣 Actin: Structural cables 🟢 Septin 7: Dynamic scaffolding 🔵 Lipids: Metabolic fuel pools An entire universe of complexity right under the objective lens. #SciArt

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

To conclude, we evidence a novel mode of viral transmission: spread through a viral Trojan Horse. This opens up many questions, as to whether deltaviruses may be causative agents of disease in humans, and whether deltaviruses can host-shift by hitchhiking with new helper viruses.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

We could show by electron microscopy and STED that primary boa constrictor cells replicating SDeV and superinfected with the UGV-1 reptarenavirus produced Trojan Horse particles.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Finally, while VSV and HSV-1 have never been shown to associate with deltaviruses in nature, we turned to the snake deltavirus (SDeV) and its association with reptarenaviruses with Jussi Hepojoki.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Furthermore, we show the tissue- and species-shifting capabilities that Trojan Horse particles allow, by showing infection of human neuronal cells with HSV-1 Trojan Horse particles! Neuronal marker in 🟣 HSV-1 in 🟡, deltavirus in 🔵 and DNA in ⚪.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

These HSV-1-RDeV Trojan Horse particles were infectious, and we could see both HSV-1 and RDeV replication over time.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

We next showed that this mode of viral transmission is not limited to Rhabdoviruses, as we could also see deltaviruses inside of Herpes Simplex Virus 1 (HSV-1)!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

We showed that these viruses could infect cells, allowing for concomitant entry of both VSV and RDeV into the same cell! We therefore called these hybrid particles “Trojan Horse” particles, reminiscent of the classical Greek story!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

A real virus-inside-a-virus!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

To understand if the RDeV vRNP was actually found inside of the VSV particle, we performed cryo-ET with the Irina Gutsche lab, and showed that a single continuous viral membrane surrounded these dual particles!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Using post-mortem human brain explants with @jvirolb.bsky.social and @gaudinlab.bsky.social, we could instigate RDeV replication within neural cells and show that upon VSV infection, these dual particles could be formed! Neurons in 🟢, vessels in🟣 DNA in 🟡 and deltavirus in 🔵.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Orthogonal validation by STED with Marie-Pierre Blanchard and immunogold labelling with Florian Seigneuret revealed that the RDeV antigen (RDAg) could be detected at the periphery of VSV particles.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Performing Atomic Force Microscopy, within the BSL-3 environment @cemipai.bsky.social with Sébastien Lyonnais, allowed us to probe native infectious particle topology at the single virion level, revealing that these hybrid viral particles exist at the native state in viral supernatants.

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Probing the supernatant by electron microscopy revealed that upon VSV superinfection deltaviruses are released from the host cell in their own viral particles (inset 2) but that, unexpectedly, they also seem to be associated with VSV particles themselves (inset 3)!

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Viroscope @viroscope.bsky.social · 07/03/2026

Deltaviruses have been shown to steal viral glycoproteins, but what happens during a real helper virus superinfection of deltavirus-replicating cells? We infected cells replicating the rodent deltavirus (RDeV) with VSV and saw an increase of the amount of RDeV RNA and proteins in the supernatant.

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