Swiss researchers have succeeded in creating a synthetic clone of the new coronavirus, which should be used by teams around the world to find a treatment or a vaccine.
- These synthetic clones of SARS-CoV-2 make it possible to work on tests, treatments or vaccines
- These clinical samples avoid the risks associated with the use of natural viral samples
Researchers around the world are working to find a treatment or a vaccine for Covid-19, which has already infected more than 3.5 million people in 187 countries and territories around the world. And time is running out, because the speed with which the virus is spreading is forcing countries to confine their populations to protect them and to slow down their activity.
In order to allow a large number of scientists to look into the question, the high security laboratory of the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI) of the University of Bern (Switzerland), has managed to create a synthetic clone of the new coronavirus.
The virus reconstituted in a week
“To achieve this, they integrated copies of DNA containing part of the coronavirus genome into yeast cells and reassembled them into a complete copy.precise the university of Bern. Based on this, scientists were then able to create infectious coronaviruses.”
These synthetic clones could be used to develop screening tests, antiviral treatments and vaccines. Every research team in the world, whether hospital, university or laboratory-affiliated, must have a replica of the virus to test the effectiveness of their innovations. This method would therefore allow them to have clinical samples for this purpose, without the need to transport the viral samples, which could prove to be risky and time-consuming.
“It only took us a week to reconstitute the virus”, said Volker Thiel, of the IVI. “We have improved this system so that we can quickly clone coronaviruses and other viruses”added Jörg Jores of the Institute of Veterinary Bacteriology at the University of Bern.
Many laboratories around the world interested
The results of this feat, in which the World Health Organization (WHO) is interested, have been made available to the scientific community and published in the journal Nature.
“With its synthetic clones, Volker Thiel’s group has so far helped many diagnostic laboratories around the world, enabling them to perform more accurate and faster tests on coronavirus samples.specifies the Swiss university. In addition, many companies and other researchers approached the Bernese researchers, because they wanted to use the high-security laboratory to test the clones for potential active substances against the virus..”
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