Take another look! Scientists fight new coronaviruses with viruses!

May 22, 2020 /
BiovalleyBIOON / -- Since the outbreak of COVID-19, many scientists have been using techniques and methods developed in decades of cancer research to understand and defeat the viruswhile fighting cancer remains a top priority for cancer scientists, they can't fully focus on their mission until they beat COVID-19They are handing over their expertise, experience and equipment to COVID-19a lab believes the key is to fight the virus with another virusthe main function of our immune system is to protect the body from potential threats, including viruses and cancerTo cope with this, cancer cells have evolved a variety of strategies to evade the immune system -- allowing them to grow larger andtumorsDr Alan Parker's team at Cardiff University are working on how to make one threat counter another and use the virus to destroy cancer cellsimage source: https://cn.bing.com
building a Trojan horseit may sound strange to spread the virus to cancer patientsBut Parker's team believes that with some fine-tuning, the virus can be trained to focus its destructive power on cancer cellsthe lab is particularly interested in a family of more than 50 viruses known as adenovirusesFor most people, adenovirus causes relatively mild symptoms, such as stomach upsets or colds (depending on the type of virus)"We're interested in how, at the molecular level, these viruses infect healthy cells and cause disease," parker, , said By understanding how they do this, you can begin to redesign the virus so that it can capture and destroy cancer cells "
the simplest thing to say is that the virus is a bunch of genetic information wrapped in a tiny shell This protective layer is made proteomics, which allows viruses to interact with cells, infect cells, and then hijack cells to create more viruses genetically engineered, Parker and his team modified the DNA of adenoviruses so that when they infect tumor cells, they release antigens that are specific to tumor (proteins that the immune system uses to recognize and respond to threats) this release teaches the immune system to better target tumor cells, like Trojan horses, which inadvertently cause their own destruction the battle between the two viruses
the lab has been refining the technology for years, but their work has been suspended because of the COVID-19 outbreak the COVID-19 pandemic forced the partial closure of universities and forced many of Parker's laboratory work to close like many other scientists working from home, they want to know how their skills can be used to help study the virus after receiving a call from a colleague who wanted to develop tests to determine whether a COVID-19 infection had neutralizing, Parker realized that his lab's methods for guiding the immune system in identifying cancer cells could also be used to train the immune system to recognize and destroy the COVID-19 virus "I said to the team, you know, it's more useful that we designed adenoviruses to express coronavirus antigens and use them like a vaccine." "
the team is no longer limited to tumor cells, but to modify adenoviruses to get as many cells as possible, using them as a microfactory to pump out coronavirus antigens this gives the immune system a chance to understand what it can expect, so when a real COVID-19 infection occurs, the immune system is ready to deal with it Although many laboratories around the world use adenoviruses as the basis for vaccines, Parker's lab has one key advantage: the freezer is filled with hundreds of adenoviruses, all slightly different this means they can go back to some of the adenoviruses that they have abandoned in the past because they have no effect on cancer, and they can study them in new ways "We know we have adenoviruses, and they're very powerful, " We don't need to express cancer antigens to help the immune system recognize and kill cancer cells, we just need to turn tumor antigens into viral antigens that allow the body to recognize and destroy coronaviruses that enter the body We believe that, based on the schedule of other things we produce, it will take us about two months to produce the first research-grade vaccines for evaluation "
It's an exciting schedule, but for a lab that has only four researchers, it's just the beginning of the process of developing any kind of vaccine that is available." image source: https://cn.bing.com
one of the key moments will be to inject the mice with an improved adenovirus to see if the immune system can respond to show it is ready to fight the COVID-19 virus But there's a big problem -- mice can't be infected with COVID-19 This means the team could n'no test whether the immune response in mice really resisted the virus Parker knows that the next step requires more cooperation "I feel like my job here is to make tools that do what we can do reasonably in the shortest possible time, and then give it to the experts," parker, , said "
back to cancer
although they look like two different worlds, Parker believes that COVID-19's work will give them a better understanding of their own research and how to optimize adenoviruses to treat cancer "We're going to apply that knowledge to the cancer environment to see how the body reacts when you provide tumor antigens in the same way, and how it produces an anti-cancer response," So it's all mutually reinforcing -- at least in my mind (biovalleybioon.com) Reference: COVID-19: Fight viruses with viruses