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Electron microscope tomography of viruses is a challenging area of inverse problems and coronaviruses pose a particular problem in that the virus particles are neither symmetrical nor identical. For identical particles "single particle" imaging techniques can be used in which one projection image is treated as a collection of random tomographic projections. Electron tomography, with its limited angle and dose, lacks the resolution to image some important features of a virus. This seminar hoped to stimulate the tomographic reconstruction, Bayesian inverse problems and machine learning communities to come together to improve 3D imaging of coronaviruses, in the hope of helping develop vaccines and treatments for Covid-19 and in the longer term other viral diseases.

The event consisted of two talks, plus a discussion on 'How can the inverse problems community help?'