COVID-19 as Seen From a Different Perspective. Are we one step closer to discovering a treatment?

    Mona Kanso a researcher from Queen’s University in Ontario has developed a new unique way at looking at viruses. Recently viruses, have changed the everyday lives of individuals hence we all now wear masks and social distance in public. I guess we have the SARS-CoV-2 virus to thank for that one as it causes COVID-19. Kanso has generated a new way of looking at viruses especially COVID-19. Kanso and her team made up of her summer trainee, Jourdain Piette and Professor Jeffrey Giacomin, have uncovered a better way at looking at viruses. They began this research in the recent pandemic as they began sculpting the coronavirus particles from tiny beads. From here they applied the laws of fluid physics to every single bead in order to calculate the properties of the virus at hand as well as its shape. They “employed general rigid bead-rod theory to calculate complex viscosities and rotational diffusivities, from first principles, of the virus suspensions (Kanso et al. 2020).  Kanso hopes this will “accelerate the path to developing a treatment and, eventually, finding a cure (Craig 1). Kanso says as far as she knows there is no other known way besides this newly discovered way of calculating the transport properties from the shape of a virus. Through Kanso’s research it is evident that the COVID-19 virus relies on kinetic molecular energy from fluid in order rotate itself into a position in which it is able to infect someone. From her research and analysis, they found that much of the fine details involving the spread of viruses is based on rotational diffusivity (Kanso et al. 2020). The SARS-CoV-2 virus is spherical in shape and is covered with peplomers which are spikes attached to its surface that it used to attach itself to cells in order to infect them (Figure 1). The COVID-19 virus itself is stationary and therefore cannot move without the thermal motion of fluids around it. This is how it infects and spreads so easily. The research done by Kanso and her team allows for drugs to be made that can prevent this type of cell binding by interfering with the rotational diffusion of the virus itself. Kanso is one step closer to figuring out a way to stop the spread of the deadly COVID-19 virus. The next step for Kanso and her team is to “explore how the triangular bulb on the tip of each coronavirus spike affects infection” (Craig 1). 

    Researcher Mona Kanso is a PhD student from Queen’s University in Canada with a focus in Chemical Engineering mainly in the polymer field. Before Queen’s, Kanso attended American University in Beirut where she received her bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering. From there she furthered her education and earned her Master of Science degree in the Chemical Engineering-Polymer field from Queen’s University where she focused on molecular models of polymers. She then continued on to get her Doctor of Philosophy PhD. Kanso now has her PhD in Chemical-Engineering- Rheology from Queen’s University. She is currently employed at Queen’s as a Graduate Research Assistant where she researches many things similar to viruses as discussed previously. 

Figure 1. Rigid bead-rod model of coronavirus. 

This image depicts the shape of COVID-19 as well as bead-rods adhering to its surface.  

 

Works Cited:

Craig, Anne. “A Different View of COVID-19”, Phys.org (2020). 

 

M. A. Kanso, J. H. Piette, J. A. Hanna and A. J. Giacomin. “Coronavirus Rotational Diffusivity” Physics of Fluids (2020). DOI 10.1063/5.0031875