Science is trying them all. In one of her greatest collective efforts in history, she sprung into action instantly. For a year you have been proposing a wave of studies, solutions, remedies and methods to defeat the virus.
I have often spoken to you, in addition to vaccines, about many other active tests and prototypes to break down the virus, including robot and systems that emit ultraviolet light to sanitize hospitals or make it safer public spaces. And now it seems the turn of the ultrasounds has arrived.
Uno MIT study shows that ultrasound waves at medical imaging frequencies can cause the virus' shell and crown "spikes" to collapse and rupture in advanced simulations.
The spike protein, the component of the virus that attaches to healthy cells, may be vulnerable to ultrasound vibrations in the frequency used by medical diagnostics. explain i MIT researchers in a press release.
The ultrasound tests
In their simulations, researchers from MIT's Department of Mechanical Engineering modeled the virus's mechanical response to vibrations that propagate through its structure through a range of ultrasounds.
They found that vibrations between 25 and 100 megahertz they triggered the collapse of the shell and 'spikes' of the virus, which began to break apart in a fraction of a second. Simulations showed that the virus would break down in air and water at the same frequencies.
Potential new ultrasound treatment for Covid-19?
Although the MIT researchers point out that their findings are only preliminary and based on limited data, they say the research lays the foundation for developing an ultrasound-based treatment to combat COVID-19.
We have shown that under ultrasound excitation, the shell and tips of the coronavirus will vibrate, and the amplitude of that vibration will be very large, producing strains that could break some parts of the virus, causing visible damage to the outer shell and possibly invisible damage to the 'RNA inside. The hope is that our paper will start a discussion across various disciplines.
Tomasz Wierzbicki, professor of applied mechanics at MIT.
There is no huge reasoning behind these experiments. The MIT team used simple concepts in solid mechanics and physics to build a computational model of the virus's structure. Limited data, such as microscopic images of the virus' shell and tips, were then used to inform the model.
It opens the way for new research
The exact properties of the material that makes up the virus tips are unknown. However, MIT researchers believe this test opens the way for further research into a new treatment for COVID-19.
“We looked at the general family of coronaviruses,” Wierzbicki says. “We are now looking specifically at the morphology and geometry of Covid-19. The potential is enormous in the current critical situation." Such an ultrasound treatment could help people who have not taken or cannot take the vaccine.
