Dr. Mohamed Othman El-Khosht, President of Cairo University, said that five research teams have been formed in the institution. The teams comprise professors from Faculties of Sciences, Medicine, Pharmacy and the National Institute of Oncology to conduct scientific and laboratory research on the novel Coronavirus.
Cairo University teams include more than 25 scientists, researchers and professors in various disciplines to discover a treatment for the Coronavirus.
Dr. Al-Khosht stated that two research papers were authored by Dr. Abdo Al-Fiqi, associate professor in the Department of Biophysics, Faculty of Science, on re-using of anti (HCV) and nucleotide inhibitors against the COVID-19.
One of the two researches was published in the International Journal of Life Sciences. The paper tackled the (Prediction of the Location of the association of COVID-19 protein with the cellular receptor GRP78) and it was published in the International Journal of Infection.
Dr. Al-Khosht added that the research team of the associate professor at the Department of Biophysics ended in predicting the location of the link between the spike protein of COVID-19 and the cellular receptor GRP78.
This link may represent one of the ways the virus takes to enter the host cell by increasing the percentage of GRP78 protein that is linked to the elderly and people of chronic diseases and tumors.
It may be responsible for increasing the rate of infection and death of those people, therefore we need to obtain spike protein to apply those results in practice to produce an anti-correlation drug. This protein can be used to produce vaccines.
Dr. Al-Khosht indicated that the second research entitled ( the Reuse of anti HCV and nucleotide inhibitors against COVID-19), recommended the development of a polymerase protein model for the novel Coronavirus which is necessary for the virus to infect the host cell.
The researcher of the same paper (second paper) also concluded that according to the similarity of the genetic sequence of the polymerase protein in both the Coronavirus and the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) virus, anti-viral drugs were used to target the polymerization protein of the novel Coronavirus.
The researcher recommended the use of drugs such as Sofosburvir, Remdisivir, and Ribavirin to have effective results against the COVID-19.
He stressed that it is possible to apply these drugs on cells (Cell Line) and then applied them to clinical trials.
It is noteworthy president of Cairo University, called on his personal page on the social networking site "Facebook", a few days ago, university scientists and specialists to feed back quickly about what has been done to find a treatment for the Coronavirus, and join the research team of the university.
He Emphasized that scientific discovery is at the forefront of good work and it is even more necessary now.
Contributed by Ahmed Moamar
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