Antivirals and Virology

This discovery builds on research which started at Peter Mac in 2019 – when Dr Mohamed Fareh and Professor Joe Trapani showed a CRISPR gene editing tool could be used to eliminate abnormal RNAs that drive children’s cancers. In collaboration with Director Professor Sharon Lewin and Dr Wei Zhao from the Doherty Institute, this same approach has been shown to suppress replication of the RNA virus SARS-CoV-2 – and importantly its “variants of concern” – in a test tube model.