It is the dream of all immunologists: developing a therapy that protects us from any present and future virus. Thanks to the efforts of a team of researchers from Columbia University and the ICAHN School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, now this dream could become reality: starting from a rare genetic mutation that gives those who have a total immunity to any virus, scholars have developed and tested on tops and hamsters a promising therapy that guarantees a few days of antiviral protection. The details are published on Science Translational Medicine.<\/p>\n
A very rare genetic mutation. Fifteen years ago Dusan Bogunovic, immunologist of Columbia University, discovered a very rare genetic mutation that affects a few dozen people all over the world and causes an \u201cadvantageous\u201d disease, making immune to any virus whoever bears it.<\/p>\n
The mutation, which causes a lack of an immune regulator called ISG15, generates slight but lasting inflammation that perennially protects from viruses: the immune cells of the affected people analyzed had come into contact with any type of viruses (influence, measles, chickenpox), but the subjects had never reported any sign of infection or disease.<\/p>\n
A superpower for everyone. Fifteen years later, Bogunovic and colleagues have decided to take inspiration from this \u201cnatural superpower\u201d to develop a therapy that makes immune to any virus. Administered as prophylaxis in the respiratory tract of animals through nasal dripping, the therapy prevented the viral replication of the flu and the Sars-Cov-2, reducing the severity of the symptoms.<\/p>\n
How does it work? Instead of \u201cturning off\u201d the ISG15 immune regulator (which would lead to the production of over 60 proteins), this preventive therapy works by activating ten proteins responsible directly of a general antiviral protection.<\/p>\n
The operation is similar to that of anti -vaccinas in mRNA: ten messengers who codify ten proteins are inserted inside a lipid nanoparticle. Once the nanoparticles are absorbed by the cells, these generate the ten proteins that trigger antiviral protection. \u201cWe only generate a small amount for a very short time, and this causes a much less inflammation compared to that of those suffering from the rare genetic mutation\u201d, explains Bogunovic.<\/p>\n
A new weapon against the next pandemic. Therapy, if effective even on humans, could prove to be a precious weapon against the next pandemic, to protect in particular the people most at risk such as doctors, nurses or family members of the infected.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe that this technology will work even if we do not know the identity of the virus,\u201d explains Bogunovic.<\/p>\n
The important aspect is that the antiviral shield, probably active for 3-4 days, will not prevent the body from developing its immune memory to the virus, thus allowing long-term protection.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It is the dream of all immunologists: developing a therapy that protects us from any present and future…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":95747,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[55958,49,48,47056,84,19970,4530],"class_list":["post-95746","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-antiviral","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-developing","tag-health","tag-therapy","tag-universal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95746","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=95746"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/95746\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/95747"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=95746"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=95746"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=95746"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}