Even as Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s spouse examined constructive for COVID-19 and the nation’s markets posted their greatest one-day loss in historical past on Thursday, a group of Canadian researchers, together with an Indian, mentioned they’ve remoted the virus behind the worldwide pandemic.
The isolation of the virus by researchers from Toronto’s Sunnybrook Hospital, the University of Toronto and McMaster University in Waterloo raised hopes for a remedy for COVID-19.
The researchers, together with Indian-origin postdoctoral pupil Arinjay Banerjee, labored on samples taken from two sufferers. In a safe facility, they managed to isolate and propagate the virus, making a supply of COVID-19 for research as to how the virus behaves.
The isolation of the virus will assist them to work on options to the pandemic, the researchers mentioned.
Arinjay Banerjee, who’s a postdoctoral researcher at McMaster University’s Institute for Infectious Disease Research and focuses on coronaviruses and in bats, mentioned: “Now that we have isolated the SARS-CoV-2 virus, we can share this with other researchers and continue this teamwork. The more viruses that are made available in this way, the more we can learn, collaborate and share.”
Highlighting the importance of their work, Banerjee mentioned: “You can’t validate anything without a virus.”
Ecstatic about his contribution to the pathbreaking analysis, Banerjee mentioned he all the time advised his mates, “When I grow up, I want to be a guy who gets called in if there’s an outbreak.”
He added, “What’s happening with the outbreak is sad, but I’m glad I can contribute to the process of understanding this and controlling this outbreak.”
Fellow researcher Dr Samira Mubareka, who’s a microbiologist and infectious illnesses doctor at Sunnybrook Hospital, mentioned their group now wants key instruments to develop options to the Coronavirus pandemic.
“While the immediate response is crucial, longer-term solutions come from essential research into this novel virus,” she added.
Congratulating his co-researchers, Toronto University microbiologist Rob Kozak, mentioned, “Researchers from these world-class institutions came together in a grassroots way to successfully isolate the virus in just a few short weeks.”
This post was last modified on March 13, 2020 5:59 pm