A new study jointly participated by researchers from China and Australia found that atmospheric pressure cold plasma can inhibit the invasion of coronaviruses into human cells, which is the basis for the development of nasal sprays that can prevent new coronaviruses, etc. Drugs lay the foundation.
New Research Coronavirus Prevention Drug
The research was participated by a number of scientific research institutions in both countries, including the Queensland University of Technology, Griffith University in Australia, Xiamen University, Jiangnan University, and Southern Medical University in China.
plasma generated under normal atmospheric pressure
Atmospheric cold plasma is a kind of plasma generated under normal atmospheric pressure and the temperature is close to room temperature. It has the characteristics of safety and human tolerability and can sterilize, promote skin wound healing, and inhibit the growth of cancer cells.
Professor Rick Thompson Says
Queensland University of Technology Professor Rick Thompson, who led the research, said the new coronavirus needs to bind to the receptor ACE2 on the surface of human cells to enter and infect human cells. Their research found that even if it is only briefly exposed to atmospheric pressure cold plasma, the ACE2 receptor on the cell surface will disappear immediately, which reduces the way the new coronavirus infects human cells through the receptor and achieves the effect of preventing infection. In the laboratory culture system, the inhibition of ACE2 receptors by atmospheric pressure cold plasma can reach about 9 hours.
Atmospheric pressure cold plasma is easy to produce
Thompson said that atmospheric pressure cold plasma is easy to produce, and its activity can also be transferred to water or other liquids, which brings the possibility of developing new crown preventive drugs, such as mouthwash or nasal spray. In addition to the new coronavirus, this feature also makes atmospheric pressure cold plasma promising to act on other viruses, preventing them from infecting human cells through the ACE2 receptor.