Professor Ben Davis involved in innovative COVID-19 research

Pembroke Fellow and Tutor in Chemistry, Professor Ben Davis has recently been involved in new and innovative research into the properties of COVID-19 at the Rosalind Franklin Institute, in an attempt to gain an understanding of how the virus attacks and enters human cells.

Working alongside Professor Jim Naismith, the director of the institute, Ben and his group have collaborated in research that has sought to analyse the virus and its properties. The research is testing whether COVID-19 gains entry to human cells by also attacking sugars on the surface of cells, instead of solely attacking external proteins.

The researchers have been using spike proteins generated by the Naismith group and their collaborators to try and determine which sugars the virus is most likely to attack. By researching this, the team hope to be able to understand how the virus functions, and how in the future it could possibly aid in the development of decoy proteins that can act as blocking mechanisms for the virus.

As these sugars can vary between different people and different parts of the human body, it is hoped that this research can also determine who might be particularly vulnerable to the virus. Ben commented that the research is beginning to yield ‘promising results’ in the development of the scientific understanding of COVID-19.