Speaking to AA on Wednesday, Professor Derya Unutmaz said the method is based on synthetic biology technology. “COVID-19 variants can escape antibodies the body develops and thus, even fully vaccinated people can be infected. The omicron variant showed us this fact,” he said.
“We were working on an immunity system countering all variants and succeeded,” he added. The treatment method developed by Unutmaz and his team of researchers works to “trap” the virus. “The surface of the virus hosts spike protein that enables it to merge itself with cells and spread. Then, it generates its own proteins in the body and replicates them to spread to other cells. This was much more advanced in omicron. Our method involves the conversion of cells (protection mechanism) into a molecule, which helps neutralize the virus and prevents it from spreading all across the cell,” Unutmaz said. He said that the method would be efficient against any future variants as well.
“It works like a laser tag on infected cells for T-cells in the immunity system, helping them to target the correct infected cells,” he elaborated.
The study began about one year ago, and the team has succeeded in developing it in a lab environment. They now plan to start animal and, subsequently, human trials. Unutmaz said they plan to wrap up the animal trials by this summer and expect to achieve results in human trials by the end of the year.
He noted that the method was a “first” against the coronavirus and was inspired by immunotherapy treatments against cancer, which his team had been working on for some time.
“It has been almost two years with the pandemic. It has been difficult, but people should not fall into despair. I believe that, with omicron, the pandemic will largely cease. With the methods we developed, we will ready our defense against future variants. Humanity and science will triumph,” he added.
