Adenovirus is a mammalian virus that contains at least 10 different proteins in an architecture that is complex but creates the virion's characteristically simple icosahedral shape. Adenovirus is an important model in molecular biology with a growing body of knowledge describing its biological properties. Dr. Burnett's aim is to understand the whole virion, at atomic resolution if possible, using crystallography to obtain finely detailed accurate images of those constituent molecules that are crystallizable, electron microscopy to establish the overall relationship among molecules and biochemistry to determine the composition of the virion and its component substructures.
