PlumeStars srl supports the Crowdfunding campaign entitled “Covid has a thousand faces. Let’s fight them all! “, promoted by the University of Ferrara to fight Covid-19.

The aim of the Project

PlumeStars srl is partner in the research project for a nasal product to treat the infection very early, led by the Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology of Ferrara, in collaboration with University of Bologna.

It has been more than a year that Covid-19 has upset the life of all mankind: it is a disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, that enters inside the body through breathing and therefore mainly via the nose and mouth of the individual.

To date, we know that the disease evolves through a series of phases, therefore, as time passes from the day of the infection, the disease changes and increases in severity. The three phases identified are:

– Phase 1: initial phase of the infection

– Phase 2: pulmonary phase with more or less severe respiratory symptoms

– Phase 3: hyperinflammatory phase of the organism that reacts, often in a very violent way, to the viral infection.

Therefore, the virus has its point of access in the nose and upper respiratory tract, where it begins to multiply.

The development of the Project

“Now in the current fight against SARS-CoV-2 there is still a lack of a specific therapeutic tool for the early treatment of positive subjects, including pre- and asymptomatic ones,” says Gaia Colombo, Associate Professor of Pharmaceutical Technology, leading the research group.

“The aim of this project is to build a prototype of an anti-SARS-CoV-2 nasal/inhalation product containing antiviral substances already known, to target the virus at the first site of infection. The product is intended to have both a therapeutic action (high efficacy and low toxicity) and a prophylactic function (reduction of the contagiousness of positive subjects) “.

Usually, nasal drug products are liquid formulations: the idea of PlumeStars and University of Ferrara and their partners from Bologna, is to make an anti-SARS-CoV-2 nasal drug in powder form, as this gives a very high drug concentration in the nasal mucosa, first site of infection.

Then the research group involving PlumeStars, comprises very young researchers (Dr. Sabrina Banella, PhD student of the Department of Life Sciences and Biotechnology at the University of Ferrara), Dr. Fabrizio Bortolotti, technical collaborator and Associate Professors, all experts and passionate of pharmaceutical technologies: a patent application on this anti-SARS-CoV-2 medicinal product has already been filed and the goal is to arrive at the prototype of the product within six months.

Vaccine research has made enormous strides in recent months, but this virus has a thousand faces, as the campaign visual states, and vaccines cannot be the only weapon to defeat it.