In a new study, researchers developed a new treatment that appears to stop the replication of both flu viruses and the virus that causes COVID-19.
Best of all, the treatment could be delivered to the lungs via a nebulizer, making it easy for patients to administer themselves at home.
The research was conducted by a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology and Emory University.
The therapy is based on a type of CRISPR, which normally allows researchers to target and edit specific portions of the genetic code, to target RNA molecules.
In the study, the team used mRNA technology to code for a protein called Cas13a that destroys parts of the RNA genetic code that viruses use to replicate in cells in the lungs.
They only had to change one sequence of RNA.
The team went from flu to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
They tested its approach against flu in mice and SARS-CoV-2 in hamsters. In both cases, the sick animals recovered.
It’s the first study to show mRNA can be used to express the Cas13a protein and get it to work directly in lung tissue.
It’s also the first to demonstrate the Cas13a protein is effective at stopping the replication of SARS-CoV-2.
What’s more, the team’s approach has the potential to work against 99% of flu strains that have circulated over the last century.
It also appears it would be effective against the new highly contagious variants of the coronavirus that have begun to circulate.
The key to that broad effectiveness is the sequence of genes the researchers target.
One author of the study is Chiara Zurla.
The study is published in Nature Biotechnology.
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