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In a move that may hasten the development of antiviral drugs and vaccines against Covid-19, a team of virologists from Switzerland has cloned the SARS-CoV2 in the lab.
The work, by researchers at the Institute of Virology and Immunology (IVI) of Switzerland’s Federal Food Safety and Veterinary Office, and the University of Bern, can make available synthetic clones of the SARS-CoV2 virus to other research groups and pharma firms attempting to develop therapeutic drugs and vaccines against Covid-19, which has infected over 36 lakh people and claimed over 253,000 lives worldwide.
The method, reported in the prestigious Nature journal on Monday, can also be used to combat other highly infectious viruses in future.
The Swiss researchers, led by Volker Thiel, a professor at IVI, and Joerg Jores of the University of Bern, reconstructed the coronavirus from synthetic DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid). DNA copies containing parts of the coronavirus genome were introduced into yeast cells and assembled into a complete copy of the virus.
Viruses are difficult to clone; they are tinier than even the smallest bacteria and extremely variable. “Our model system using yeast cells shows that it is ideally suited for reconstructing coronaviruses and other viruses,” said Thiel in a statement.
Provisional results shared
Away from the public gaze, the scientists have already shared the provisional results of the study with the scientific fraternity well before the current peer review so that they can use the cloned viruses for developing antidotes. The group has already supported many of the world’s diagnostic laboratories by providing the synthetic clones, allowing faster and more accurate testing of Covid-19 samples.
“We were aware of this work since February, but it has now gone through peer-review,” said SS Vasan, a professor of Indian origin who heads the Dangerous Pathogen Team at Australia’s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO). “The authors, for the first time, have shown that a yeast-based synthetic platform can be used to reconstruct diverse RNA viruses including SARS-CoV-2,” said Vasan, who is not connected with the current study.
The dosa analogy
When this virus first emerged, China refused to share samples; instead it shared the genome sequence. “This is like publishing the recipe of how to make dosa from rice and lentils instead of sharing some fermented batter from which it is a lot easier and quicker to make,” said Vasan, whose team was the first in the world outside of China to make sufficient stocks of the virus and initiate preclinical research, using the virus isolated from an imported case at a Melbourne hospital.
“If imported cases didn’t unintentionally take the virus to different parts of the world, reverse genetics is the only way the rest of the world can propagate, characterise and understand this virus in laboratories, and subsequently develop and evaluate vaccines and countermeasures against it,” Vasan said in a telephone interview to BusinessLine .
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