The refreshing coronavirus SARS - CoV-2 has caused 450,000 last to particular date , and part of its lethality is related to how it attack the lungs , make it operose for hoi polloi to get O . A fresh therapeutic countermeasure to hamper SARS - CoV-2 ’s content to attack the lung involves using nanotechnology to fundamentally intoxicate up SARS - CoV-2 cells and amuse them aside . The finding of this avenue of treatment , take in cell polish dishes , were publish in the journalNano Letters .
educate by researchers from Boston University ’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories ( NEIDL ) and the University of California San Diego , the applied science could have major implications for fighting the SARS - CoV-2 virus , and could even be applied in the discussion of influenza and Ebola .
The SARS - CoV-2 virus attacks the lungs by seeking unparalleled signatures affiliate with lung cubicle membranes , which it latches to . Here the virus takes hold , using the living lung cells to replicate their own transmissible material . The researcher harnessed this lung - prison cell tracking fundamental interaction to produce polymer droplets laden with lung mobile phone membrane that essentially deflect the virus aside from the real lung tissue . The nanotechnology “ sponges ” bind with the SARS - CoV-2 computer virus better than living cells , work as an effective countermeasure for this deadly disease .
" Our guess is that it move like a bait , it contend with cellular telephone for the computer virus , " say NEIDL microbiologist Anthony Griffiths , co - corresponding author on the study , in astatement . " They are little flake of plastic , just containing the outer pieces of cells with none of the internal cellular machinery contain inside support cells . Conceptually , it ’s such a wide-eyed estimate . It mops up the virus like a poriferan . "
Current results are base on cellular phone culture dish aerial , but the discipline authors are hopeful that the nanosponges will behave with alike efficiency inside the body . Once they bind with the SARS - CoV-2 virus , the body ’s resistant organization can then chuck out of them as it routinely does with dead cells as part of the normal cellular telephone cycle .
It ’s also hope the nanosponges could aid Covid patients by soaking up cellular signals that trigger an over the top immune response . This has been seen in many Covid patients who originate acute respiratory distress , which is the most deathly aspect of the coronavirus contagion and leads to patients being dependent on ventilators .