![\"News](\"https:\/\/media.healthday.com\/Images\/icimages\/29044.jpg\"\/)
<\/p>\n
MONDAY, July 27, 2020 (HealthDay News)<\/p>\n
A lab-created virus that’s similar to but not as dangerous as the new coronavirus could aid efforts to create COVID-19<\/a> treatments and vaccines<\/a>, according to scientists who created it.<\/p>\n Airborne and potentially deadly, the SARS<\/a>-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19<\/a> must be studied under strict safety conditions. Precautions include full-body biohazard suits with pressurized respirators, and labs with multiple containment levels and specialized ventilation systems.<\/p>\n But many scientists lack access to such safety measures, slowing efforts to find drugs<\/a> and vaccines<\/a>. So a team of researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis said they created a hybrid virus that doesn’t require such extensive measures.<\/p>\n To create it, they replaced a gene in a mild virus with one from SARS<\/a>-CoV-2. The hybrid virus infects cells and is recognized by antibodies just like SARS<\/a>-CoV-2, but can be studied under ordinary laboratory safety protocols.<\/p>\n “I’ve never had this many requests for a scientific material in such a short period of time,” said study co-author Sean Whelan, head of the university’s Department of Molecular Microbiology.<\/p>\n “We’ve distributed the virus to researchers in Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Canada and, of course, all over the U.S.,” he said in a university news release. “We have requests pending from the U.K. and Germany. Even before we published, people heard that we were working on this and started requesting the material.”<\/p>\n Researchers said the hybrid virus could help scientists evaluate a range of antibody-based preventives and treatments for COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n And since the hybrid virus looks like SARS<\/a>-CoV-2 to the immune system, it’s a potential vaccine<\/a> candidate, researchers said. They’re conducting animal studies to evaluate the possibility.<\/p>\n The study was recently published online in the journal Cell Host & Microbe<\/i>.<\/p>\n — Robert Preidt<\/p>\n <\/p><\/div>\n![\"MedicalNews\"](\"https:\/\/images.medicinenet.com\/images\/HealthDay\/healthday.png\")
Copyright \u00a9 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n