Griffith University and City of Hope designs this treatment approach using gene-silencing RNA technology called
to attack the virus’ genome directly with lipid nanoparticles to deliver directly to lungs.
‘Treat COVID-19 patients with siRNA (small-interfering RNA) nanoparticles to improve survival.’
“Treatment with virus-specific siRNA reduces viral load by 99.9 per cent. These stealth nanoparticles can be delivered to a wide range of lung cells and silence viral genes,” said co-lead researcher Nigel McMillan, Professor at Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ) at Griffith.
The findings of the experiment published in the journal Molecular Therapy shows that treating SARS-Cov-2 infected mice with this therapy improves the survival and loss of disease.
They also discovered that nanoparticles were stable at 4 degrees Celsius for 12 months and at room temperature for greater than one month so that they will be used in low-resource settings to treat infected patients.
“These nanoparticles are scalable and relatively cost-effective to produce in bulk,” added Kevin Morris, Professor and associate director of the Centre for Gene Therapy at City of Hope.
As these siRNA-nanoparticle formulations work on all beta coronaviruses and its variants, so they can be used as a therapy to treat Covid-19 patients in the future.
Source: Medindia
