Researchers from the University of Chicago are exploring a likely treatment for COVID-19 using nanoparticles

Researchers from the University of Chicago are exploring a likely treatment for COVID-19 using nanoparticles to abolish the virus.

Acting as Nanotraps, which attract the virus by imitating its usual target cells, the nanoparticles capture the virus within the body. The virus binds to the Nanotraps, which sequester the virus from other cells and target it for destruction by the immune system.

Researchers have confidence it could be administered in nasal spray format as a future method of preventing the virus. Early-stage results have been positive, the team reported in the journal Matter.

The team, led by graduate student Jill Rosenberg and postdoc Min Chen from the university’s Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering, analysed the spike-like protein that SARS-CoV-2 uses to bind human cells’ ACE2 receptor protein.

Based on this, the researchers created nanoparticles, which are around 500nm in diameter, with a high density of ACE2 proteins on their surfaces and nanoparticles that included neutralising antibodies.

According to researchers, COVID-19 treatments have used both ACE2 proteins and antibodies, but the attachment to nanoparticles produces a more robust method for eradicating the virus.

The team highlighted that the Nanotraps were tested in contradiction of a pseudovirus in human lung cells in tissue culture plates. Results conveyed that they blocked entry into the cells completely.

When tested with a pseudovirus in an ex vivo lung perfusion system, the nanoparticles completely prevented infection, and when tested in vitro with a live virus, the system purportedly inhibited the virus ten times better than neutralising antibodies or soluble ACE2 alone.

Rosenberg stated: “We can switch out different antibodies or proteins, or target different immune cells, based on what we need with new variants.”

Jun Huang, assistant professor, stated: “We have done rigorous testing to prove that these Nanotraps work, and we are excited about their potential. This is the starting point. We want to do something to help the world.”