University of Louisville Researching How Tobacco Plant Could Help Fight Coronavirus
“looking into an engineered tobacco-produced protein, called Q-Griffithsin, a broad-spectrum antiviral”
This is the sort of positive contribution universities can make at this time. Many of them have great scientific resources.
WVLT News reports:
Kentucky university studying to see if tobacco plant could play role in fighting COVID-19
The University of Louisville is doing research on the tobacco plant, and it could be a game changer in the fight against COVID-1, WAVE reports.
Researchers at the University of Louisville Regional Biocontainment Lab are exploring the possibility of a preventative product that involves tobacco. For the past few years, it has been looking into an engineered tobacco-produced protein, called Q-Griffithsin, a broad-spectrum antiviral.
“We’ve been testing it in a phase one clinical trial for preventing HIV transmission, but we know from work that we did some years ago that it also has very good activity against coronaviruses,” said Dr. Kenneth Palmer, from UofL’s Center for Predictive Medicine for Biodefense and Emerging Infectious Diseases.
WAVE reported that the research team received samples of COVID-19 last month and have been researching the therapeutic candidates against COVID-19 in cell cultures.
The tobacco the team is researching is grown in a controlled pharmaceutical facility in Owensboro.
The goal is that they will produce a product that would be used as a preventative measure in the form of a nasal spray. It could be a major breakthrough, but it’s not going to happen overnight.
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Comments
Remember in Woody Allen’s “Sleeper” where in the future cigarettes were now good for you?
Give those researchers a cigar!
It’s not going to happen overnight? It’s probably not going to happen within a year, maybe two.
If nothing else, this will upset the busy-bodies.
I wonder whether they’ll refuse to take the cure, if this pans out.