• Question: With corona virus; have you looked into oxidising the amino acids of it’s capsid with something like ozone (O3) so then only the DNA is there and it cannot function?

    Asked by anon-236150 to Lucy, Greg, Emma, David, Anthony, Anna on 16 Mar 2020.
    • Photo: Lucy Kelly

      Lucy Kelly answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      I don’t work on coronavirus. The lipid layer covering the virus can be destroyed by soap, which essentially kills the virus and is cheap way of removing the outer later compared to ozone.

    • Photo: Emma Hayhurst

      Emma Hayhurst answered on 16 Mar 2020:

      I don’t work on the virus either but as Lucy said I think there are easier ways to destroy the virus capsid. Most virus infections come from close contact and droplets not from surfaces so it wouldn’t be possible to use capsid destruction to prevent all infection, although it will obviously help with decontaminating hands and surfaces. Interestingly, the genome of coronavirus is RNA – and these are only found in viruses.

    • Photo: David Mark

      David Mark answered on 17 Mar 2020:

      As Lucy said, the easiest and cheapest way to kill the virus is using soap which dissolves the lipid coat that it needs to be infectious.

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