(Tom: Cure number 6! They are listed here:
https://www.tomgrimshaw.com/tomsblog/?p=26880)
A new study suggests that an extract from seaweed may outperform the drug Redesivir.
The extract, called RPI-27—found in the same type of seaweed that you might eat in sushi—helps trap the virus before it can infect human cells. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute tested the extract in the cell studies, along with the blood thinner heparin, which has a similar effect.
When someone is infected with SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, a spike-shaped protein in the virus attaches to a receptor on a human cell and then inserts its genetic material. But if another molecule with the right fit is available to act as a receptor instead of human cells, the virus can attach to it instead, trapping the virus in place as it harmlessly degrades.
“You’ve effectively blocked infection by serving as a decoy,” says Jonathan Dordick, the lead researcher and a professor of chemical and biological engineering at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. “Effectively, it interferes with and it pulls away the virus, and therefore the virus can’t bind to the surface of the cell. Once it’s latched on to by these compounds—these seaweed extracts or heparin—it likely decomposes and it would not be effective.”
In cell tests in the lab, RPI-27 was nearly 10 times as active as remdesivir at blocking infection, meaning a much smaller dose was needed to inhibit infection.