Students at CQUniversity are working to better understand how virus mutations happen, as well as the nature of other virus-borne diseases, with the help of 3D printing. CQUniversity’s medical and engineering departments are working together to scale up several virus models to about the size of a softball and 3D print them, so that students can hold and examine them from every angle. Dr. Padraig Strappe, Senior Lecturer in Medical Laboratory Science, concluded that by 3D printing a scaled-up flu virus they could highlight the haemmagluttin, which is the part of the virus that changes from year to year.