BEIJING – Peking University Researchers developed Drug which can stopcoronavirus pandemic without vaccine.
Researchers at Peking University, Beijing, China, have developed a drugwhich they believe has the potential to stop the Coronavirus pandemicwithout vaccines.
According to the study published by the researchers, the drug will not onlybring down the recovery time of Coronavirus patients but it will alsoprovide them immunity from the virus for a short period.
Sunney Xie, director at the Peking University’s Beijing Advanced InnovationCenter for Genomics, revealed that the drug has produced successful resultsduring animal testing.
When we injected neutralizing antibodies into infected mice, after fivedays the viral load was reduced by a factor of 2,500. This suggests thatthe drug has a therapeutic effect.
Neutralizing antibodies are produced by the human immune system to preventany virus from damaging the cells. Peking researchers used 14 neutralizingantibodies extracted from the blood of 60 recovered Coronavirus patients.
Moreover, researchers have found that the mice remained infection-free whenthey were administered the coronavirus after getting injected with theneutralizing antibodies, suggesting the drug offers short-term protectionagainst the virus.
Read Top Stories
Xie’s team has been working relentlessly following the outbreak ofCoronavirus in Wuhan in late December last year.
Our expertise is single-cell genomics rather than immunology or virology.When we realized that the single-cell genomic approach can effectively findthe neutralizing antibodies we were thrilled. The team has worked day andnight in the search of the antibodies.
Peking University researchers are now planning to move ahead with theclinical trials for the drug. The team is looking to conduct clinicaltrials outside China because cases in China have decreased, offering fewerpeople for testing.
Sunney Xie is hopeful that the drug will be ready for use before the end of2020 and it will be widely available before a potential winter outbreak ofthe virus.
Xie concluded that Peking University drug can potentially stop the pandemicwithout a vaccine.
