Student Researchers At McDaniel College Working To Help To Stop The Spread Of Covid-19
BALTIMORE (WJZ) -- Student Researchers at McDaniel College are working to help stop the spread of Covid-19.
It's a lofty goal but a goal that McDaniel chemistry students like George Abbas are trying to tackle. He is one of several working to create a Covid-19 antiviral drug.
"Having more scientific research to tackle a problem is the best thing that we can do as scientists," said Abbas.
Their professor Dana Ferraris explained to WJZ that every virus can replicate and spread. However, it needs a few key proteins to do that.
The idea is to knock out a couple of those proteins and disrupt their lifecycle.
"The whole idea here is if you do contract the virus, you can be given a pill, knock down the amount of virus in the body, so it prevents from doing more damage to your lungs and whatnot," said Ferraris.
"Even if we fail, actually it brings us closer to a realization of what we want.
By the end of the summer, students are hoping to go public with some of their findings and to get grant funding to further their studies.