Latest research into finding new materials that help prevent Covid-19 infection published
The world faces a severe and acute public health emergency due to the ongoing coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19) global pandemic caused by the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
Personal protective equipment (PPE) is the main defence against viral contamination. PPE is generally made from materials called polymers. As a result there is an opportunity to look for materials that can actively reduce SARS-CoV-2 surface contamination and its associated transmission and use these to improve PPE. Dr Xuan Xue, Professor Morgan Alexander and other members of the Biomaterials Discovery team have recently published a paper reviewing the stability of SARS-CoV-2 and similar viruses on different surface materials and highlighting potential areas of future research. The full article can be read in the journal .
All Surfaces Are Not Equal in Contact Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
Xuan Xue, Jonathan K. Ball, Cameron Alexander, Morgan R. Alexander
, Volume 3, Issue 5, 4 November 2020, Pages 1433-1441
Related work is also published in Biointerphases by Dr Andrew Blok, Professor Morgan Alexander and other members of the Biomaterials Discovery team. Here, researchers identified methods for rapidly screening a large number of materials to identify ones that have desirable virus-material interactions that would make them suitable for use in PPE. The article details competitive adsorbents of Rubella and Lassa fever virus-like particles on hundreds of different polymers using high throughput micro array screening which will be progressed to include SARS-CoV-2 viral particle inactivation as a selection criterion to allow new polymers to be discovered with desirable attachment and inactivation profiles.
Polymer Microarrays Rapidly Identify Competitive Adsorbents of Virus-like Particles (VLPs) Andrew J. Blok, Pratik Gurnani, Alex Xenopoulos, Laurence Burroughs, Joshua Duncan, Richard Urbanowicz, Theocharis Tsoleridis, Helena Müller, Thomas Strecker, Jonathan Ball, Cameron Alexander, Morgan Alexander
, 15, 061005 (2020) DOI: 10.1116/6.0000586
Posted on Wednesday 11th November 2020