Congratulations to Dr. Rao, who has co-authored a paper in PNAS (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences) focused on the structure of the multipartite Brome Mosaic Virus (BMV)!  Graduate student Antara Chakravarty was also an author on the study.

You can read the paper at the following PNAS website link: https://www.pnas.org/content/117/20/10673.short?rss=1

The UCR press release titled "Tiny Particle, big payoff" can be viewed here: https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2020/05/14/tiny-particle-big-payoff

From the UCR press release:

"Ayala Rao, professor of plant pathology and microbiology, has been studying Brome Mosaic virus for decades. Unlike some viruses, the genetic material of this virus is divided into three particles that until now were impossible to tell apart. 

'Without a more definitive picture of the differences between these particles, we couldn’t fully understand how they work together to initiate an infection that destroys food crops,” Rao said. “Our approach to this problem has brought an important part of this picture into very clear focus."