A Canadian medical company has claimed that it has successfully isolated the COVID-19 virus, allowing it to better understand its biology and evolution.
Based in Winnipeg, Emergent Biosolutions, the biopharmaceutical company specializes in developing vaccines for infectious diseases. It will perform a variety of therapeutic, vaccine and antiviral tests on the isolated virus.
Recently, Emergent Biosolutions also partnered with two US-based medical firms, Novavax and Vaxart, to speed up the development of the vaccine for Coronavirus based on different tests.
Karen Mossman, a pathologist, and molecular medicine specialist explained why the research team needed a live strain of the virus:
Although COVID-19 comes from the same family of viruses as SARS, its human transmission and mortality rates are significantly different from SARS. This is why the research team had to first isolate and develop a better understanding of the COVID-19 virus.
On what it means to have an isolated virus, Karen Mossman said:
An isolated live virus allows the researchers to move a lot faster towards the development of the vaccine for COVID-19. The breakthrough will allow researchers to perform complete testing on the isolated virus to ascertain whether a particular test curbs the virus from growing.
Cynthia Carr, an epidemiologist working in the research team, remains hopeful to initiate the clinical trials of the vaccine, which will now be developed at Emergent Biosolutions, before the beginning of summer.
Laura Saward, a medical microbiologist, claims that mass production of the COVID-19 vaccine at Emergent Biosolutions production facility will start by the end of summer.
Via: 1460 CJOY
