University of Pennsylvania researchers have created a chewing gum laced with a plant-grown protein capable of “trapping” and neutralizing SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing COVID-19. They report the gum can lower viral load in saliva and potentially reduce transmission rates.
Henry Daniell of Penn’s School of Dental Medicine said that the SARS-CoV-2 replicates in the salivary glands, and we know that when someone infected sneezes, coughs or speaks, some of that virus can be expelled and reach others. This gum offers an opportunity to neutralize the virus in the saliva, giving us a simple way to cut down on a source of disease transmission possibly.
Vaccination efforts have greatly helped fight against COVID-19, but even fully vaccinated individuals can still become infected. Moreover, recent research even suggests viral loads found in the saliva of vaccinated people are pretty similar to the unvaccinated
This plant material, which the team then freeze-dried and grinds up, is a viable means of protein delivery. The new protein production system is also attractive because it avoids many time-consuming and expensive aspects of traditional protein drug synthesis processes.All of that prior ACE2 protein research put Daniell in a unique research position once COVID-19 arrived. Notably, prior coronavirus research has shown that ACE2 injections can reduce viral load among people with severe COVID-19 infection
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