A new approach to stopping virus growth gives hope for new therapeutic options against seasonal influenza, bird flu and possibly COVID-19, says Dr. Ned Budisa, Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Chemical Synthetic Biology at UM and who holds an adjunct position at the Technical University in Berlin.

Budisa is a member of an international partnership led by German researchers that has developed a chemically engineered nanoparticle that literally takes the air to breathe away from influenza viruses. The team has found these nanoparticles are biodegradable, non-toxic, and not immunogenic in cell culture studies.