Rubbing Salk into the wound of the rescue therapy

Rob Verkerk PhD MSc DIC FACN, Founder, executive & scientific director

Salk frenzy

If you’ve had an eye on news around the science of the current pandemic, you probably caught some discussion of a short paper published in the high impact journal Circulation Research by scientists at the Salk Institute in the La Jolla community of San Diego, California. Here’s the lay press release about the study if you’d like an easier read.   

The nub of the paper that’s sent the internet into a frenzy is essentially two-fold:

1. The paper provides more evidence – albeit using a pseudovirus on hamster and human endothelial lung cells – that SARS-CoV-2 is more than just a respiratory pathogen. Covid-19 should also be regarded as a vascular one because the spike protein readily damages endothelial cells of the lungs. This might explain why some people suffer strokes and other complications of the vascular system.
2. This second point is the one that’s got people – especially scientists – talking. The spike protein on its own can render this damage to the endothelial cells. It doesn’t need the rest of the viral envelope or capsid that is made up of waxy lipids and proteins that contains the genetic cargo, in this case, RNA.