Hamish Todd, second-year EASTBIO student, presents Virus, the Beauty of the Beast - an interactive documentary on Friday, 30 June 2017 at The Banshee Labyrinth, Edinburgh, Scotland.

Viruses, in spite of the pain they cause us, are some of the most beautiful creatures in the world, covered in varied and intricate patterns - the patterns on Zika virus actually have connections to medieval Islamic art.

'Virus, the Beauty of the Beast' is a documentary, three years in the making, about the patterns we find in the shapes of viruses, and how understanding them can help us fight those viruses. It has a particular focus on HIV, Zika virus, and Hepatitis and, by using animation and simulation, it explores what the patterns tell us about viruses, but also what they tell us about the human designs that they appear in (buildings, golf/foot/zorbing balls, origami, gamma ray and neutrino detectors, alloys, and more).

This premiere will be the only time that the documentary will be screened before it is released on the internet - and places are limited! If you'd like to come, please reply to this email or get an eticket on Eventbrite.

About Hamish: His PhD is on applications of computer graphics to understanding structural biology, with a particular focus on using VR to interpret 3D electron density maps. 'Virus, the Beauty of the Beast' grew out of his master's dissertation in 2014 and he has been working on it since then.