Recent reports revealed that there are more than 90,000 Novel Coronavirus cases confirmed around the world and the virus has killed over 3,000 patients. But the news for which the world is waiting, i.e., the treatment for COVID-19 has not arrived yet. Scientists from all around the world are now trying to find the Novel Coronavirus treatment and they may need the public help to accomplish the goal.
Treatment for Coronavirus
Any research to create a vaccine for the COVID-19 will take months and then only after a human trial, the cure can be commercialized and used by the doctors in hospitals to treat patients.
But recently, scientists have found the portion of COVID-19 that allows it to infect people. Now the researchers said that the public can help separate teams of scientists find a way to neuter Coronavirus' power. They said it can be possible either by donating computing power or by playing a competitive online video game.
What did the researchers find to combat COVID-19?
A Stanford-founded distributed computer network, Folding@home, can pull power from machines all over the world to simulate protein folding, the creation of a protein's unique shape and drug design. This program runs in the background and uses an individual's computer when the person isn't to help Stanford run protein folding simulations. Anyone can download the program here. But now, the Folding@home has turned its system network to a task to fight the Coronavirus outbreak.
In a recent post, while explaining the new program, Folding@home stated that "We are uniquely positioned to help model the structure of the 2019-nCoV spike protein and identify sites that can be targeted by a therapeutic antibody." In addition, the researchers said that the team can create computational models to fight the COVID-19 outbreak but it takes a lot of computing power.
A game to hunt for protein to combat Coronavirus
People, who want to take part in the search for the combatting protein to defeat COVID-19, should also know about a game, known as Foldit. Introduced by Center for Game Science at the University of Washington, in this game players compete and collaborate to build the proteins and amino acids.
This game is like an active version of Folding@home in which players physically manipulate digital simulations of molecules. It should be mentioned that this unique game has launched a coronavirus puzzle with an aim to find a protein.
In a video, shared on YouTube, Foldit scientist Brian Koepnick said that this protein called the coronavirus spike protein, allows the deadly virus to infect human cells. While announcing the puzzle in the video he also revealed that "We wanna give Foldit players the opportunity to design proteins that bind to this spike protein and prevent infection."
As per the developers of the game, this puzzle is a fun way to combat the fears related to the Coronavirus while actively working on a solution. But it should be known that simulation-based cure is just the beginning point of developing the vaccine for COVID-19. Koepnick added that "We do want to emphasize that, like all the research we do, laboratory testing takes time to make sure these molecules are safe and effective against coronavirus."
But all these solutions will need to get through a battery of tests to make sure that these are safe and effective which may take time.
The vaccine for Coronavirus is near
Recently it was mentioned by the Israeli Minister of Science and Technology Ofir Akunis that a Coronavirus vaccine would be ready in just a few weeks and available within 90 days. As per the reports, The Institute for Biological Research (IBR) in Ness Ziona, a subsidiary of the Galilee Research Institute (MIGAL) is in the final process of developing the COVID-19 vaccine.
Israeli minister Akunis congratulated MIGAL on the so-called breakthrough and said, "I am confident that there will be further rapid progress, enabling us to provide a needed response to the grave global COVID-19 threat."
