Nigel McMillan and his team from the Menzies Health Institute at Griffith University, alongside scientists from City of Hope research centre in the US, say the “next-generation” antiviral approach could stop the virus from replicating in the lungs. Professor McMillan said stage one clinical trials revealed the antiviral treatment reduced the viral load in mice lungs by 99.99 per cent.While traditional antivirals, such as Tamiflu and remdesivir, reduce symptoms and help people recover earlier, this new technology uses small-interfering RNA to attack the virus’s genome directly, stopping the virus from replicating. Lipid nanoparticles, designed at Griffith University and City of Hope, will be used as the drug delivery vehicle to deliver the siRNA to the lungs. Professor McMillan said the treatment had proved incredibly effective in mice trials. “Treatment with virus-specific siRNA reduces viral load by 99.99 per cent,” he said. “These stealth nanoparticles can be delivered to a wide range of lung cells and silence viral genes.”The treatment can work on all betacoronavirus, including the original SARS virus, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus which causes COVID-19), and any new variants that could arise in the future, because it “targets ultra-conserved regions in the virus’s genome”.“We have also shown that these nanoparticles are stable at 4C for 12 months, and at room temperature for greater than one month, meaning this agent could be used in low-resource settings to treat infected patients,” Professor McMillan said. The team is hoping to progress to the next stage of trials by the end of the year, and if proven effective, could be made available commercially by 2022.
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