The famous Zika virus. I built the first scene in blender. I set cycles (render) and you can find the material nodes. I used a Subsurface Scattering material. Then I studied the materials even in 3dsmax, here I used the nodes panel. Here the virus has a material with the Fallow parameter.
In Blender and also in 3DStudioMax did not need to use any textures. They have been set Parametric materials.
I give you these formats: 3dstudioMax2010 (vray2.30) blender obj 3ds fBX
good fun