Research conducted by Prof. Marcin Drąg and his team at the Wrocław University of Technology in southwestern Poland could become a basis for developing a drug to treat the Covid-19 disease caused by the coronavirus, Poland’s PAP news agency reported.
It quoted Drąg as saying that his research findings, obtained in collaboration with colleagues in both Poland and Germany, could also be used to “develop diagnostic tests to more quickly determine whether someone has coronavirus.”
Drąg is one of three leading scientists who last year won awards hailed as the “Polish Nobel Prizes” from a foundation in Warsaw.
During the awards ceremony at Warsaw’s Royal Castle in December, Poland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Science and Higher Education Minister Jarosław Gowin said that Drąg and the two other winners were leading lights of the country’s research and academic communities and mentors for many colleagues and students.
A preprint version of a research publication outlining the results of Drąg’s research is available for free online at biorxiv.org.
Meanwhile, a team of Polish scientists has reportedly isolated the virus that causes the Covid-19 disease using a sample taken from the country’s first patient to have tested positive.
The genome sequence of the virus will soon be shared with the global research community through public databases, according to Grzegorz Juszczyk, director of the Warsaw-based National Institute of Public Health/National Institute of Hygiene.
The announcement comes as scientists around the world are struggling to develop treatments and a vaccine for the new coronavirus, which has killed thousands across the globe.
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Source: PAP