KARACHI: Dow University’s research team has claimed to have prepared Intra-Venous Immuno globulin (IVIG) with plasma obtained from recovered patients of Corona virus through which COVID-19 victims can be treated.
Vice Chancellor Prof Muhammad Saeed Quraishy terming it a very important breakthrough in the war against Covid-19 held: “This way of Treatment is a safe, low risk and highly effective against Coronavirus. Through this method, Immunoglobulin is prepared after separation of antibodies found in the blood of a recovered patient from the corona.
“This method is considerably different from plasma therapy and it should be noted that the treatment by hyper immunoglobulin (H-IVIG) is approved by the US Federal agency, Food and Drug Administration (FDA), for normal conditions. Plasma therapy, on the other hand, is only allowed in emergencies due to its side effects.”
According to reports Dow University research team led by Dr Shaukat Ali has developed H-IVIG after days of continuous hard work, given the crisis situation. The team was able to collect first blood sample in March 2020 and managed to isolate antibodies chemically, purified it and later concentrated these antibodies using the ultra-filtration techniques that remove the remaining unwanted materials from the final product.
Dow Uni holds this to be the first global report of isolation, formulation and safety demonstration of immunoglobulin purified from recovered COVID19 patient and can be a ray of hope in this time of crisis when the whole nation expects national researchers to come forward and serve the nation.
The method is also a type of passive immunization but uses purified antibodies rather than the whole plasma. The treatment is considered safer and more effective than plasma transfusion as it does not carry the undesired component of blood like plasma proteins, potential bacterial and viral pathogens.
Such purified antibodies are commercially available globally against diseases like tetanus, rabies, Influenza and hepatitis. The same strategy has been effectively used in the time of other viral epidemics like MERS, SARS and BOLA.”
The team used blood donated by recovered COVID19 patients to purify antibodies, capable to neutralize corona virus. Laboratory testing and safety trial of the formulated product (experimental vials) in animals have been successful.
Vice Chancellor Professor Saeed Quraishy has assigned task to clinicians at Dow hospital to team up with researchers to devise a strategy for fulfilling ethical and regulatory requirements for trials.
The lead researcher Dr. Shaukat Ali is Principal of Dow College of Biotechnology. Other team members included Dr. Shobha Luxmi, Syed Muneeb uddin, Mir Rashid Ali, Ayesha Ali, Mujtaba Khan, Fatima Anjum, Dr. Sohaib Tauheed.
The team appreciated the guidance and extraordinary support from the Vice Chancellor and said they are determined to carry their achievements forward. Their drive to collect further blood donations is continued and in parallel they are working on scaling-up their production process.
This is said to be a major step towards international efforts for controlling COVID-19 disease mortality. Already six world renowned multinational companies have joined hand to proceed in the similar direction to produce IVIG from recovered patients; in this regard Dow University has taken lead in developing the first local IVIG against the strain causing COVID-19 disease in Pakistan.
It has already been shown earlier that COVID-19 strain prevalent in Pakistan has a few mutations, hence it is expected that the local IVIG against local virus strain will be very useful and efficacious.
Dow University of Health Sciences, Pakistan has lead the efforts against the novel Corona virus COVID-19 by first isolating the SARS-COV-2 virus for genome sequencing, then discovering human genes resisting the/ virus, and now has isolated and purified the antibodies composed of Immunoglobulin’s fraction of the plasma of the recovered patients.۔
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Coronavirus: Dow University experts carry out research
9th of April. 2020
KARACHI: Experts at the Dow University of Health Sciences have identified two naturally occurring mutations, that can withstand the novel coronavirus, are found in the human gene.
The coronavirus, due to these mutations in the human gene can be ineffective in their body. This research has recently been published in the International magazine of Virology, Journal of Medical Virology.
Experts say recent research will help to determine/allocate the medical resources for the global outbreak of the Coronavirus. Experts at the Dow University say test samples taken during the screening can also be used to detect the presence of these genetic variants.
The presence of either or both of these mutations will reduce the chances of the coronavirus disease for getting worse, in which case the person affected by the corona will only need quarantine in one room of the house while in the other case person with the corona may further need medications along hospitalization and ventilator may also be required.
Research was conducted at Dow College of Biotechnology, Dow University of Health Sciences under the supervision of Dr Mushtaq Hussain, Vice Principal, Dow College of Biotechnology.
Dr Hussain and his team including Dr Nusrat Jabeen, Fozia Raza, Sanya Shabbir, Ayesha Ashraf Baig, Anusha Amanullah and Basma Aziz explored mutations in the ACE2 gene/protein of 1000s of humans via genomic data mining. ACE2 (angiotensin converting enzyme 2) protein is a molecule to which SARS-CoV-2, causative agent of COVID-19, binds at the very initial phase of the infection.
By extensive structural modeling and docking techniques, the researchers predicted that two mutations, S19P and E329G, in ACE2 may make humans (with these mutations) naturally resistant to COVID-19 infection. Screening of COVID-19 patients for the presence of these mutations will in turn help in predicting the prognosis of the disease and allocation of the limiting resources.
Dr. Mushtaq Hussain, head of the research team, said that in data mining the human genomes of individuals from China, Latin America and some European countries are included. It is worth mentioning here that in the above analysis, the frequency of the mutations in ACE-2 was very low. Keeping in mind that the countries mentioned above have been badly affected by the coronavirus.
Prof. Muhammad Saeed Quraishy, Vice Chancellor of the Dow University of Health Sciences, met the Head and members of the research team and applauded their efforts and congratulated them on timely research and its success at international level.
He said that at Dow University, Research is being carried out on Covid-19 on various aspects and also getting positive results. It is hoped that these efforts to save human beings from this global epidemic will be successful.
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