An Inside Look at COVID-19 Research

As the coronavirus pandemic continues to course through our communities, it has become clear how essential research is to our everyday lives and well-being. These days, we hang off every word spoken by our top doctors and scientists. We awake to screens full of breaking news alerts about promising treatments. And we discuss mask etiquette over dinner with loved ones. 

We know that scientists, including many at the University of Alberta, are working on solutions to this virus that has changed our lives, but most of us only vaguely understand what that means. To learn more, New Trail took an inside look at the labs of virologists David Evans and Tom Hobman at the U of A’s Li Ka Shing Institute of Virology — which was designed for a crisis like this.

Formed in 2010, the Li Ka Shing Institute brings together top researchers to tackle the world’s deadliest infectious diseases, from human immunodeficiency virus to Ebola. The institute has custom-built “level three” labs that allow researchers to work safely with deadly pathogens such as COVID-19. Like something out of a sci-fi movie, workers need special key card access to enter and they wear special gowns, masks and headgear to protect their eyes. Other labs are “level two,” where slightly lower levels of precautions are required. 

Fuelled by the urgency of the situation, Evans’ and Hobman’s research teams are juggling multiple projects at once in their shared lab. While Hobman hunts for therapies to boost the immune system’s response, Evans’ team searches for ways to speed up drug testing and sanitize personal protective equipment. Evans is also on the trail of a targeted vaccine. 

It may be an unprecedented and exciting time in the lab these days, but the daily monotony of experiments and detailed record keeping remains constant. This is, after all, not a sci-fi movie.

Beyond a vaccine

We’ve all heard about the hunt for a vaccine, but researchers like Evans and Hobman also are searching for solutions to problems that wouldn’t even occur to most of us. 

Take the problem of screening drugs, which can be lengthy and costly. Evans’ team is working to create a molecular clone of the virus, known as a replicon: a non-infectious version that’s safer to handle. Researchers could use it to screen certain antiviral drugs more easily and quickly without having to use a level three lab. The extra safety precautions in a high-containment lab tend to make testing more laborious and can slow down research.

Plus, replicons can be modified by adding new genes that are easier to detect, which makes it easier to see whether a drug is helping to slow the replication of the virus or not.

A second problem Evans’ team is trying to address is the shortage of personal protective equipment worldwide, especially in developing countries. They’re looking for simple, affordable ways to sanitize equipment to make it reusable. 

“Many parts of the world don’t have the sterilization technologies that we do,” he says. “So the World Health Organization is very interested in a low-tech accessible technology that anyone could use.” The proposed solution? Methylene blue, a readily available dye that’s used to sterilize blood. Evans’ research shows that when exposed to light, the dye generates oxygen radicals, which are effective at killing the virus.

Evans’ team also recently partnered with a U.S.-based company to develop and test a vaccine that targets the “spike” protein the coronavirus uses to enter cells and cause infection.

Figuring out how the virus works

While researchers hunt for a vaccine or treatment, the virus continues to create a host of devastating effects that need solutions today. Hobman’s lab is focused on developing therapies to boost the immune system’s defence against the virus. 

First, they have to figure out what makes the virus tick. A virus is a parasite that can only grow in living cells. Once attached to a host, it tricks the body’s immune response into letting it replicate. Hobman’s research team is trying to figure out exactly how this works with COVID-19.

Distancing puts a damper on

In many ways, it’s business as usual in U of A labs: the long days, the meticulous record keeping and the repetitive nature of everyday experiments. In other ways, it’s like never before. 

One of the greatest tolls is caused by the necessary physical distancing, says Evans. Where once researchers would connect over crosswords in the lunchroom, they now appear as Brady Bunch heads over Zoom meetings focused on the business at hand. That has interfered with impromptu interactions between researchers — so-called creative collisions — that are so important to discovery.

“The thing I don’t think people really appreciate about research, and it’s actually a problem, is that a tremendous amount of creative ideas come out of casual conversations,” says Evans. He gives the example of the structure of the DNA molecule, said to have been discovered in an English pub.

Still, researchers like Hobman and Evans are finding ways to connect and collaborate in this new and uncertain world. And together they’re carrying out the painstaking process of conducting experiment after experiment, working toward finding solutions to this life-threatening disease.