Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco, have devised a nasal spray to administer synthetic antibodies, which they believe will help stop the spread of the coronavirus.
A team led by graduate student Michael Schoof engineered the synthetic molecule that “straitjackets the crucial SARS-CoV-2 machinery that allows the virus to infect our cells,” according to a report on the university’s website.
A paper posted on the preprint server bioRxiv says experiments using the live virus show the molecule is among the most powerful COVID-19 antivirals yet discovered.
While it’s not a traditional vaccine, the researchers believe one spray a day of the synthetic antibodies, dubbed “AeroNabs,” from a nasal spray or inhaler could offer protection from the deadly bug until a vaccine becomes available, according to ABC 7 News.
“Because it’s so stable, we can essentially put in one of these, this is a little nebulizer,” said Dr. Aashish Manglik, an assistant professor of pharmaceutical chemistry at UCSF, who added that the aerosolized agents trace back to a minuscule molecule first discovered in camels and similar animals, called a nanobody.
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