It will be 2 years next month since this came out.
I know that is not long in research years, but it's hard to be patient even if you're not a patient. :-)
Dr. Kevin Coombs, PhD, Professor, Department of Medical Microbiology, will lead the research for the University of Manitoba. One of Dr. Coombs' interests is the investigation of how COVID-19 impacts genes and proteins in lung cells. In addition to Theralase's anti-COVID research, Dr. Coombs will lead a multi-institutional consortium using a powerful research tool, called SomaScan, and next-generation sequencing, to rapidly determine how COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus) - and a variety of other coronaviruses - affect large numbers of genes and proteins in different human cells, which are the normal target of the COVID-19 virus.
Dr Coombs stated, "I have had the opportunity to independently evaluate Theralase's PDCs, on an in-vitro pre-clinical basis, as a potential new anti-viral drug; specifically targeting COVID-19. I have completed a preliminary analysis of how they affect two enveloped viruses very similar in make-up to COVID-19; specifically H1N1 Influenza and Zika virus, and am impressed with the high efficacy kill rates, both with and without stimulation."
Dr. Coombs went on to say, "From this initial data, Theralase's PDCs have a very high anti-viral activity at a very low concentration, in the nanomolar range, even when not stimulated. It is also noteworthy that this effect was observed at concentrations well below toxicity levels observed in mammalian cells or mammalian patients; therefore, this approach would provide a very high efficacy to safety ratio. Thus, the PDCs effective concentration is comparable to, or better than, many other anti-virals that my lab has tested and this virus killing capacity is further improved when the PDC is light activated, alone or in various formulations."