Covid-19 treatment methods primarily focus solely on preventing the virus from replicating. However, scientists have claimed that the new treatment inhibits replication but also protects or repairs tissue, which is important because COVID-19 can cause symptoms that affect patients long after the viral infection has been cleared.
The potential therapy investigated in this study was created by scientists using skin cells called dermal fibroblasts. The investigators engineered the cells to produce therapeutic extracellular vesicles (EVs), which are nanoparticles that serve as a communication system between cells and tissue.
Engineering these fibroblasts allowed them to secrete EVs--which the investigators dubbed "ASTEX"--with the ability to repair tissue.
In previous experiments, the investigators demonstrated that ASTEX can repair heart tissue, lung tissue and muscle damage in laboratory mice.