The first photo in the world of the Omicron variant has been released. It was created at the Child Jesus Hospital in Rome, Italy.

The image shows the structure of the tip protein in the Omicron variant on the right and of the Delta variant on the left compared to the original SARS CoV-2 tip.

Omicron has many more mutations than Delta (already very varied), concentrated in an area that interacts with human cells.

The red dots indicate the areas with very high variability, the orange with high variability, the yellow ones with medium variability, the green ones with low variability and the celestial ones with low variability. The gray area is the one that does not vary. This does not automatically mean that these variations are more dangerous, simply that the virus has adapted to the human species further by generating another variant.

“Further studies will tell us whether this adaptation is neutral, less dangerous or more dangerous,” the researchers comment.

The first photo in the world of the Omicron variant was created in the research area Multimodal Medicine of the Child Jesus (coordinated by Prof. Carlo Federico Perno), under the direct supervision of Prof. Claudia Alteri (in collaboration with State University of Milan), by Valentino Costabile, Rossana Scutari and Luna Colagrossi.