Rolling out safe, efficacious COVID-19 vaccines worldwide will be a formidable challenge that will take time, causing many more people to become infected in the meantime. In an interview with Drug Discovery News, Taconic Biosciences' Dr. Terina Martinez lent her insights on the need to develop effective COVID-19 therapeutics and the role of mouse models in advancing this important research:
“"What we're talking about is finding that essential animal model that is susceptible to the virus but gets a pathology that's reasonably translatable to the human condition, so that you can meaningfully study mechanisms and targeted therapies."
Unfortunately, mice in their native state cannot be infected by SARS-CoV-2. Their version of the ACE2 receptor, the viral spike protein target, is sufficiently different from the human ACE2 to permit binding.”
Read more at: drugdiscoverynews.com
“"What we're talking about is finding that essential animal model that is susceptible to the virus but gets a pathology that's reasonably translatable to the human condition, so that you can meaningfully study mechanisms and targeted therapies." Unfortunately, mice in their native state cannot be infected by SARS-CoV-2. Their version of the ACE2 receptor, the viral spike protein target, is sufficiently different from the human ACE2 to permit binding.”