Scientists at The Scripps Research Institute (TSRI) have determined the most detailed picture yet of a crucial part of the hepatitis（肝炎） C virus, which the virus uses to infect liver cells. The new data reveal unexpected structural features of this protein and should greatly speed efforts to make an effective hepatitis C vaccine. The findings, which appear in the November 29, 2013 issue of the journal Science, focus on a protein known as E2 envelope glycoprotein（包膜糖蛋白）.

"We're excited by this development," said Ian A. Wilson, the Hansen Professor of Structural Biology at TSRI and a senior author of the new research with TSRI Assistant Professors Mansun Law and Andrew B. Ward. "It has been very hard to get a high resolution structure of E2 and it took years of painstaking work to finally accomplish that."

Any successful hepatitis C vaccine is likely to target the E2 protein. Scientists already have isolated rare antibodies from patients that can bind E2 in ways that neutralize a broad range of viral strains.

"It took our team six years to crack this very difficult scientific problem, but we didn't give up," said Law. "Now that we can visualize the structural details of these binding sites, we can design vaccine molecules that mimic them."