STANFORD, Calif. (KRON) - While a few shots in the arm have become common practice in protecting people against COVID-19, researchers at Stanford are working on a potential game-changer, a COVID-19 vaccine in the form of a nasal spray.
“We can target delivering the RNA and DNA that belongs to the spike protein of the COVID virus directly to the lining of the respiratory tract, nose, the trachea all the way down into the lungs to immunize the cells that line the respiratory tract,” Dr. Tarik F. Massoud said.
Not only is this more efficient in that it mobilizes the army in the body quicker to fight COVID-19, but the hope is it can help prevent future infections.
“So you are walking around and instead of picking it up from someone unvaccinated and carrying it perhaps, in theory, would lessen the chance of you picking it up because the receptors are blocked,” Dr. Massoud said.
The researchers got this idea of a COVID nasal spray working on brain cancer treatments.
So far, studies have been done in mice, but clinical trials may not be too far away.
“This can be easily done in the next six months if we talk to pharma. They have all the facilities to do that,” Dr. Ramasamy Paulmurugan said.
Researchers also say this nasal spray type vaccine is also more user-friendly and can be especially beneficial for developing countries that have had trouble getting their hands on existing vaccines.
from KRON4 https://ift.tt/3pZiN1V
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