Reducing the Infectivity of SarsCov2 on PPE gowns used in heaLthcare Environments (RIPPLE)

降低sars病毒对医疗环境中使用的防护服的传染性2019冠状病毒病大流行对每个人都产生了重大而深远的影响。虽然我们现在有了有效的疫苗，但有些人仍然容易感染冠状病毒，尤其是它的变种。特别是免疫系统功能不佳的人，或医院、卫生或社会护理机构中的年长者和幼童，仍然处于危险之中。减少感染风险的主要方法之一是穿戴个人防护装备，如防护服和口罩。然而，当医护人员照顾COVID-19患者时，这些物品会被病毒污染。脱下口罩会导致病毒脱落，污染环境或被其他人吸入。这可能导致进一步的感染。我们的想法是让个人防护服特别粘住COVID-19病毒（SARS-CoV-2）。通过这样做，病毒将被保存在隔离衣上，以便在医疗垃圾箱中处理，而不是被释放到医疗环境中或被吸入。通过减少可感染人群的病毒数量，我们希望这将降低那些特别容易感染的人感染COVID-19的风险。为了做到这一点，我们正在与工业伙伴合作，创造小分子（配体），旨在粘附在病毒表面的一部分（刺突糖蛋白）。我们将创建许多配体，并使用具有相同刺突糖蛋白的安全病毒（慢病毒载体）来找出哪些配体粘附效果最好。当我们选择了最好的配体时，我们将看看哪些配体可以附着在PPE防护服所用的材料上。然后我们将通过观察它们结合的时间和强度来确保它们仍然附着在慢病毒载体上。最后，我们将利用利兹大学的专门设施，观察这种新型粘性材料与活的SARS-CoV-2病毒的表现，以确保它们在现实世界中发挥良好作用。我们的工业合作伙伴Astrea和NIRI在大规模制造配体和专用材料方面拥有丰富的经验，因此可以大量生产成功结合SARS- CoV2的配体-材料组合，并尽快提供给卫生和社会保健部门的工作人员。

Reducing the Infectivity of SarsCov2 on PPE gowns used in heaLthcare Environments (RIPPLE)The COVID-19 pandemic has had significant and far-reaching effects for everyone. While we now have effective vaccines, some people are still vulnerable to the coronavirus and especially to its variants. In particular, people who have immune systems that do not function well, or the very elderly and very young in hospitals and health or social care settings are still at risk. One of the major ways we can reduce the risk of infection is by wearing personal protective equipment, such as gowns and masks. However, when healthcare staff are looking after a COVID-19 patient, these items become contaminated with virus. Taking them off can result in viruses being shaken off and contaminating the environment or being breathed in by other people. This could lead to further infections.Our idea is to make PPE gowns specifically sticky to the COVID-19 virus (SARS-CoV-2). By doing this, the virus will be held on the gowns for disposal in clinical waste bins, rather than being released into the healthcare environment or breathed in. By reducing the amount of virus available to infect people, we hope this will reduce the risk of COVID-19 for those who are particularly vulnerable to infection. To do this, we are working with industrial partners to create small molecules (ligands) that are designed to stick to a part of the virus surface (spike glycoprotein). We will create lots of ligands and use a safe virus with the same spike glycoprotein (lentivirus vector) to find out which ones stick the best. When we have chosen the best ligands to work with, we will see which ones can be attached to the materials used in PPE gowns. We will then make sure these still stick to the lentivirus vector by looking at how long and how strongly they bind. Finally, we will use the specialised facilities at the University of Leeds to see how the new sticky materials perform with live SARS-CoV-2 virus to make sure they will work well in the real world. Our industrial partners, Astrea and NIRI have a lot of experience with making ligands and specialised materials on large scales, so that the ligand-material combination that successfully binds SARS- CoV2 can be produced in large quantities and reach staff in the health and social care sectors as soon as possible.