Team:LZU-CHINA/Future

The world is still faced with the COVID-19 pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2. To inhibit the expression level of ACE2 is an effective treatment. Based on this, we developed a preventive antiviral strategy in human cells. It will serve as a tool to reduce ACE2 expression. The system may buffer the evolution and escape of viruses and may prevent related pathogenic viruses in the future.
We will verify the security and efficiency of this strategy through a series of experiments. In the future, we hope to establish multiple ACE2 stable cell lines, mainly includes cells and digestive tract cells. Then ACE2 knock-down was performed to fully verify the inhibitory effect of CRISPR-Cas13d system on the entry of SARS-CoV-2.
In addition, we will work to develop safer and more effective delivery tools, such as precise tissue infection treatment by adding tissue-specific promoters, and we preliminarily envisage the development of a delivery method of aerosol inhalation. We expect to be able to produce aerosol drugs for patients to inhale through the mouth and nose. Drugs directly reach the infected respiratory tissues to treat diseases. This method is safer and more targeted than medication, injection and other treatments with low cost and no trauma.
Through extensive social surveys, we found that many people still have security concerns about ACE2 knockdown and the use of lentivirus vector. Many people's resistance to this therapy comes from unfamiliarity with RNA editing technology. In the future, we will strengthen science education and publicity of synthetic biology, so that more people can learn about our projects and synthetic biology.
Through the work above, we hope to improve our project to achieve greater success.