{"id":244,"date":"2020-03-30T15:18:53","date_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:18:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/?p=244"},"modified":"2020-03-30T15:36:35","modified_gmt":"2020-03-30T14:36:35","slug":"medway-school-of-pharmacy-to-aid-in-research-for-covid-19-therapies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/2020\/03\/30\/medway-school-of-pharmacy-to-aid-in-research-for-covid-19-therapies\/","title":{"rendered":"Medway School of Pharmacy to aid in research for COVID-19 therapies"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Antibodies are produced by the body\u2019s immune system that <strong>recognise viruses like SARS-2-CoV <\/strong>and bind to such structures as those on the <strong>surface of a virus <\/strong>(Spike proteins), to block the virus entry and<strong> instruct the immune system to destroy it<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>A panel of antibodies that <strong>might bind to proteins<\/strong> from the SARS-2-CoV coronavirus have already been identified from people infected with the<strong> 2003 SARS coronavirus<\/strong>. These antibodies bind to<strong> highly pathogenic coronaviruses<\/strong>, including SARS-2-CoV.<\/p>\n<p>The research will seek\u00a0to develop a <strong>potential antibody therapy<\/strong>, with the aim of progressing the therapy <strong>to be ready for clinical trials<\/strong>. These trials will determine if the developed therapies can <strong>treat coronavirus infections<\/strong> including COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>For this project, the team from the University of Kent will be working alongside <strong>Hong Kong University<\/strong> and the <strong>National Institute for Biological Standards and Control<\/strong>, as well as Imperial College.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Positive results<\/strong> from this research could <strong>include vital breakthroughs<\/strong> in actions against the virus, putting the NHS in a stronger position via access to <strong>potential antibody therapeutics<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Dr Nigel Temperton<\/strong>, based in the<strong> Medway School of Pharmacy<\/strong> is the Principal Investigator and said of the project: \u2018I am very excited to be part of this consortium where <strong>I will be using SARS-2-CoV pseudotypes<\/strong> (safe mimics of the real virus)<strong> to screen panels of antibodies<\/strong> for those that can cross-react with a range of pathogenic coronaviruses <strong>including those responsible for COVID-19<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n<p><strong>Professor Philippe De Wilde<\/strong>, Deputy Vice-Chancellor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/research\">Research<\/a> &amp; Innovation at Kent said: \u2018The University of Kent has <strong>very strong research groups<\/strong> in Pharmacy (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.msp.ac.uk\/\">Medway School of Pharmacy<\/a>, joint with the University of Greenwich) and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\">Biosciences<\/a>. These groups are focusing their efforts on<strong> helping the NHS and government agencies<\/strong> during the current crisis. The University of Kent has supported this research for years, and I am glad that we have the knowledge and the researchers available to <strong>contribute to the national effort<\/strong>.\u2019<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Original article written by Sam Wood: https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/news\/science\/24777\/kent-to-aid-in-research-for-covid-19-therapies<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Antibodies are produced by the body\u2019s immune system that recognise viruses like SARS-2-CoV and bind to such structures as those on the surface of a &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/2020\/03\/30\/medway-school-of-pharmacy-to-aid-in-research-for-covid-19-therapies\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":66714,"featured_media":245,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[70],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/66714"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244\/revisions\/249"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/pharmacy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}