South African researchers making giant strides in fight against Covid-19

Tasnim Suliman, a postdoctoral research fellow working under Professor Megan Shaw. ANA Pictures.

Tasnim Suliman, a postdoctoral research fellow working under Professor Megan Shaw. ANA Pictures.

Published May 16, 2020

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Cape Town  - UNIVERSITY researchers in the Western Cape are making strides in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic.

UWC and Stellenbosch University (SU) collaborated on research to develop the Sars-CoV-2 strain in a laboratory.

This while a spin-off company of the

Biopharming Research Unit at UCT used plants to

produce antigens and

antibodies required for rapid diagnostic Covid-19 test kits.

Cape Bio Pharms used a distant cousin of tobacco, Nicotiana benthamiana, as a bioreactor to produce antibodies and antigens, while UWC and the SU Division of Medical Virology grew the virus in a lab.

South Africa obtained its first isolation of Sars-CoV-2 with collaborative efforts from UWC and SU last month.

“The isolation of the virus is the first step towards being able to conduct other tests. Without a pure culture of the virus, no other tests can be done,” said Professor Megan Shaw, who relocated from the US to join UWC.

It does not confirm whether the virus was able to cause infection, said Tasnim Suliman, a postdoctoral research fellow working under Shaw.

Suliman took clinical samples from positive Covid-19 patients at Tygerberg Hospital and injected them on to live cells. Shaw told Weekend Argus the virus was grown in plastic dishes that were kept at 37ºC and covered in a nutrient-rich liquid.

To grow a virus, it is necessary to know what type of cell the virus likes to infect, and this is where the specialist virology knowledge of UWC’s Suliman has proved vital.

After two to three days, there could be over a million copies of the virus.

The data that exists on this virus is based on detecting genetic

material.

By using SU’s safety level-3

laboratory, the researchers benefited from the support of Professor Wolfgang Praiser, the university’s head of Medical Virology.

“All we have done is provided the virus with the right conditions to grow,” Suliman said.

Weekend Argus

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