It is important news as medical health services concentrate on vaccine delivery to curb the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Meanwhile our politicians scream: If you have Covid symptoms in Sydney, do NOT go to see your doctor, go back home, call your medical centre and wait for a call from them (LINK).
Polish scientists are working on a drug for COVID-19. They use nanoparticles and bacteriophages in their research. The project may turn out to be a breakthrough in the fight against the pandemic.
Researchers from three Warsaw centers are working on the drug for COVID-19 – the National Institute of Oncology. Maria Skłodowskiej-Curie, the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics of the Polish Academy of Sciences and the University of Warsaw in Warsaw.
Dr. Elżbieta Sarnowska, head of the experimental immunotherapy department at the Institute of Oncology in the “Eureka” program on Polish Radio I said that the new drug against COVID-19 is a “coronavirus neutralizer”. Scientists use nanoparticles and bacteriophages to study it.
Prof. Tomasz Sarnowski from the Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, explained that nanoparticles “are much smaller antibodies than those that are classically found in organisms”. – Nanofibodies are a fragment of single-chain antibodies that are found in some animals, such as alpacas or sharks – said the professor. – We decided to use it against the COVID-19 disease – he added in the program of Polish Radio I.
Bacteriophages are well tolerated because they are natural microorganisms that attack bacteria and in fact regulate the bacterial population in nature. People, as hosts of many strains of intestinal bacteria and not only and we have a lot of bacteria as well as bacteriophages in us – explained Dr. Sarnowska.
She noted that “over thousands of years of evolution, we have learned to tolerate bacteriophages.” – We really wanted to use this bacterial microorganism; arm it with a given antibody that will recognize the pathogenic virus and simply neutralize it; that is, it will not allow it to penetrate into the cell or it will block its functions – she explained.
When asked what stage the research is at, Dr. Elżbieta Sarnowska replied: “we found a nanoparticle, we developed a bacteriophage with a given nanoparticle; we have confirmed in tests that it is safe for healthy human cells, both hematopoietic and stem cells ”. – Also nanofibodies are safe for the cells of the immune system – added Dr. Sarnowska from the National Institute of Oncology. Maria Skłodowskiej-Curie.