Biotechnology uses Being The Savior Against Fight with Corona

When one of the worst diseases in the history of humanity rose head, it was dealt with a severe and fierce blow bringing it down to its knees. This severe counter was led by the world of science and medicine. It was because of the modern advancements that science and biotechnology uses has made in the area of medicine that while we did suffer losses and countless and unreported loss of lives things didn’t get worse, relative to the other pandemics that humanity faced centuries or millennia ago.

And that all because scientists and researchers reacted to and found out a cure fast enough to not suffer any big problems.

Despite the fact that no true cure has been found against the deadly novel coronavirus, because of the changes in the strain and structure of the virus and combination of different versions of them forming altogether a new version of the virus.

And although it’s true that many countries have allowed the public to go outside mask-free, the US and Israel among them, the research and study about this particular virus and the ways that they can return are unknown.

And while studies are still being conducted to understand the structure and composition and the nature of the virus it can only be done so by reading its genetics. And that is when the task falls into the hands of the department of biotechnology uses,  which according to definition deals with genetics and mutations.

The definition of biotechnology goes, “the exploitation of biological processes for industrial and other purposes, especially the genetic manipulation of microorganisms for the production of antibiotics, hormones, etc.”

For more than one year biotechnology uses/ists have been trying to study the DNA structure of the virus and as such is playing a pivotal role in helping us deal with the problem. Let’s take a look at all the help that biotechnologists are providing and the role that biotechnology uses is playing to fight Covid-19.

The biotechnology uses for medicinal purposes is nothing new. With the technology and research done by biotech companies, information such as knowledge of the genetic makeup of our species, the genetic basis of heritable diseases, and the invention of technology to manipulate and fix mutant genes provides methods to treat the disease that can be easily found out. And then all that remains is to find a solution and the right treatment to fight it.

Understanding the structure:

To fight an enemy, you need to know what exactly he looks like and that’s what several biotech companies and researchers told the world about. It was through the help of the available researchers only that the physiology of the novel coronavirus capsid was found.

According to researchers, Coronaviruses are composed of different types of common viruses that are found in humans and animals. And it was only after condensing the pathological edifice of the COVID-19 capsid, that it was found that the integral proteins are the spike protein, the envelope protein, the membrane protein, and the nucleocapsid protein.

So, the credit for the knowledge of the current structure and appearance of the COVID-19 virus which as we all know is ‘crown‘ goes to our researchers and biotechnologists. And not only this our researchers gave us a more detailed description of the structure and formation of the novel coronavirus.

Finding the Cure:

Things are slowly returning back to normal, and while it is still a lot far from normal, the reason for that is the availability of some cure. And that was only because of the description of what’s underneath the coronavirus capsid which is actually a protein shell that encloses the genetic material of the virus.

According to studies inside the capsid lies the nuclear capsid or protein that is bound to the virus’s single-strand RNA, which holds all the genetic information for the replication to occur. Apart from the most obvious role, protein also inhibits many of the host cell’s defence mechanisms and assists the viral mRNA in replicating itself.

It was because of this revelation and important piece of information that drugs such as Remdesivir and others were able to save countless lives. Nucleotide prodrugs such as Remdesivir and others, usually function as inhibitors by stopping viral replication by inhibiting the viral RNA polymerase chain altogether. The use of nucleotide prodrugs can work to reduce SARS CoV-2- levels in the lungs, thereby stopping the entire chain that follows post-covid infection.

The other cure that was found is another one of the most prominent ones. And that is plasma treatment. A leading medication that is even now being issued to critical stage patients after a large amount of research, the administration of convalescent plasma works as a passive transporter of antibodies.

Retained from the blood of recovered patients antigens containing plasma works by either creating a bind to the subunit of the spike protein, which in turn provides a safeguard to the ACE2 receptor in epithelial cells, or by coating the virus, which tags them to be engulfed by the macrophage cells.

Some studies have suggested that almost 30% of high-risk COVID-19 patients lose their lives because of their blood clots thus increasing the chances of strokes and sudden death. It was to stop those trials and researchers started to find the right kind of blood thinners.

Special help of nanotechnology is being taken under various clinical trials to determine blood clot severity and endothelial cell viscosity, to establish effective blood-thinning medications. A rapid assessment of a critical blood clotting condition will lead to a decision on the correct blood- thinning agent, preventing strokes or other thrombosis-induced jeopardies.

Despite all the bad that has come out of this deadly virus, there is no doubt that it has also done some good. One such is the growth in the sector of health and pharmacy. In the words of Kiran Mazumdar Shaw- “This is an opportunity to really strengthen the India biotech sector.

Pandemic reveals that it is very important that we get into vaccine production in a bigger way and we need a lot of studies and researches on viruses”. Therefore, all of this has led to a big change and increase in demands for the development of front-line medicines, vaccines, diagnostic equipment, test kits for diagnosis, and treatment of novel corona.

Various pharma companies have obviously profited from the boom that the health sector has seen in the last year.

Even studies on drugs that were previously used for different purposes after research are being used to treat infected patients. One such example is anti- malaria drugs like Chloroquine, Hydroxychloroquine, and paracetamol. Also because of a weak immune system, people suffering from COVID-19 infection are more susceptible to other opportunistic secondary bacterial and fungal infections, and thus antibiotics are currently used for treating these infected patients.

Because of the important role that researchers, scientists, doctors, and everyone in the healthcare sector have played, there has been a great demand to support the sector with funds and other resources available. So more than anything a huge scope of research and development opportunities is rising.

In conclusion, it was nice to see that during the times of crisis biotech giants and pharma companies didn’t get greedy but instead showed a real moral compass. By sharing their resources and scientists regardless of animosity and envy. And while the health sector, biotechnologists, and other related people are currently getting the biggest attention, that does not mean that industries such as IT, etc are not helping. A great example of that is researchers working in collaboration with the IT sector to develop smart, rapid testing kits.

While of course, the medicines are working as alternatives, surely all of us have heard of recovered patients with COVID 19 infection who are also getting infected for the second time. Therefore, it looks like herd immunity and vaccination is the most probable way to stop this tragedy that disrupted everyone’s life.