Molecular Cell Biology: Treating Coronavirus/Influenza Infections

This essay, submitted by a student, addresses the critical knowledge gaps in treating coronavirus and influenza infections, focusing on the molecular, cellular, and genetic aspects. The author explores how a better understanding of these areas could have helped in preventing or mitigating the COVID-19 pandemic. The essay highlights the lack of knowledge regarding virus origin, lifecycle, transmission, and clinical spectrum. It emphasizes the importance of multidisciplinary research, including medicine, virology, microbiology, and genetics, to prepare for future outbreaks. The student argues that understanding how animal viruses jump species boundaries is a key area where further research is needed. The essay also discusses the challenges in drug discovery and vaccine development due to the virus's high mutation rate and adaptability. It concludes by emphasizing the need for continuous research to predict and understand the severity of new strains and develop effective treatments. The author suggests that if certain knowledge gaps were addressed a decade before the pandemic, the impact of the current crisis would have been significantly reduced.

Running head: MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
Name of the Student:
Name of the University:
Author’s Note:

1MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
“What Should We Know to Better Treat Coronavirus Infections?”
The coronavirus pandemic will come to an end one day maybe in a few months or a
year. However, with knowledge, the situation would have been different. COVID-19 is
thought to serve as a mega-decibel wake-up call for the entire world. The first case if
COVID-19 was located in Wuhan, China, in the middle of November 2019 and since the
number of affected cases rose. The first reaction of the Chinese government was to deny the
fact and then cover it up. In the month of December, results from various laboratories
indicated that there was an outbreak of a new virus, which was similar to that of Severe Acute
Respiratory Syndrome or SARS 1 (Zhang & Liu. 2020). However, the government did not
act upon it. In December, a doctor from Wuhan, Li Wenliang released the evidence on the
internet who was penalised for spreading rumours and later died due to the disease (BBC
News, 2020). On 14 January, the World Health Organisation (WHO) had stated that in the
preliminary testing by the Chines authorities, there was no evidence of human-to-human
transmission. However, six days later, China admitted that the virus could be transmitted
through; however; it was too late, as the disease had travelled across the world. Currently,
there are 2407400 affected cases and 165071 deaths in the world and the most affected areas
are the USA, Spain, Italy and other European countries (Worldometers.info, 2020).
The callousness of the Chinese government was one of the deadliest reason of the
outbreak of the virus in all over the world; however, it can be stated that there is a lack of
knowledge that did not allow the healthcare as well as the scientific community to offer
testing and treatment options to reduce the burden of the disease. As per WHO, it a novel
virus and it spread through droplet transmission. There are no vaccine or treatment options
available due to the lack of knowledge in the research community (Yuen et al., 2020). It is
tagged as a ‘novel’ virus due to insufficient data resulted in the illness. The commencement
of research had been initiated latterly and it can be stated that for the investigators, the

2MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
recognition of the new coronavirus as the cause of severe acute respiratory syndrome was a
remarkable yet known fact. This is because they had worked with the family of viruses for
more than 30 years. Thus, the feature of coronavirus related to biology, disease and
pathogenesis was familiar in nature. The studies conducted by the research indicated that the
replication of this virus has several mechanisms that can be repeated and thus, persistent
infection occur. Patel et al. (2020) opined that the high rate of mutation and the
recombination of RNA-RNA hinder the virus from being extraordinarily adaptable and thus,
have the capability of regaining and acquiring virulence from time-to-time. Recently
considerable efforts have been made in finding various aspects of the virus and explaining the
factors that have been occurring such a high rate of deaths in the world. These challenges
have posed a significant challenge in drug discovery and vaccine development (Li et al.,
2020). The scientific community was not aware of such havoc that may have taken place as a
result; they had directly they focus on the existing diseases. The major gaps in the knowledge
were related to the origin, duration of virus lifecycle, transmission mode, epidemiology and
clinical spectrum of the disease. From the recent outbreak, various information has been
collected that allowed in gaining understanding (Li et al., 2020). The common symptoms at
the onset of the illness among the patients include fever, cough and fatigue with less common
signs, including sputum production, diarrhoea and headache. The patients had pneumonia
with abnormal findings examines from the chest CT scan (Lam et al., 2020). The challenges
in the research are due to the fact that it is a unique pathogen that is different from the
previous SARS outbreak and thus, adaptability in a different manner to humans. The
adaptation results in a faster spread, better replication, better cell entry and in some cases, it
helps in the reduction of the fatality rate.
From various researches and studies, it can be seen that the researcher primarily
thought it to be similar to the previous SARS outbreak and reliable of it to strategies. As a

3MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
result, much of the time was wasted in creating a treatment for it; however, it was found at a
much later stage that it is a more unique and challenge strain of coronavirus that had occurred
the pandemic killing thousands of people all around the world. It can be stated that the
transmission dynamic was not known and the evolution of viruses in the natural reservoirs, in
general, require more significant understanding (Yao et al., 2020). The gap knowledge of
how an animal virus jumps the species boundaries and ends up among human would have
been more useful in preparing for the pandemic or in future with the epidemic. In addition to
this, the insights of the circulation of the virus in animal population would have been able to
offer more information related to its emergence in human and the mutations that occur in
both animals and humans. Currently, there is no medication or vaccines being available in the
market because people are unaware of various aspect of the virus as it is observed in a study
that the virus modifies and changes its structure over time that does not allow in restricting it
(Huang et al., 2020). Thus, the gap in knowledge related to molecules that may help in
stopping the machinery of the virus from functioning due to lack of molecular and genetically
studies of coronavirus. As per the opinion of Poon and Peiris (202), the coronavirus was
always present in the world and have been extensively studied by the medical fraternity. This
is because there are many coronaviruses that cause the common cold in human and is not
deadly in nature because of less adaptable and less intensity in replication; thus, it was easy to
study. The data from these viruses were initially relied upon for addressing the issue related
to pandemic. However, much later, it was found that the strain of coronavirus that is causing
COVID-19 is much more virulent and deadly; thus, affecting the people in a way that was not
unknown (Ng et al., 2020). Therefore, it was evident that lack of knowledge created a
considerable gap between the disease and the scientific community, which severely affected
the prospect of managing the diseases at an optimal level and reduction in the number of
casualties.

4MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
In the near future, it is bound to happen that a new, novel and mutated coronavirus
may develop. Thus, the scientists and researchers must evaluate all the possibilities related to
mutation of the genome present in the coronavirus in order to predict and understand the
severity and impact of the new strain. This will help in the management of the disease as well
as the development of drug or vaccine at an immediate basis to help in saving millions of
lives. Another important to aspect that needs to be considered in this case is an integrated and
comprehensive effort from a multidisciplinary team that includes medicines, virology,
microbiology, veterinary science, molecular biology and genetics from all parts of the world
need to be made for preparing for future epidemic or pandemic. The knowledge related to the
leap of the virus from animal to human is one of the missing pieces in the puzzle that would
have been discovered a decade ago before the hit of the pandemic. This would help in
preventing the illness and would not allow humanity from comes to grip with the deadly
pandemic sweeping the globe.

5MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
References
BBC News (2020). Coronavirus wreaks havoc in US black communities. . Retrieved 20 April
2020, from https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52194018
Huang, C., Wang, Y., Li, X., Ren, L., Zhao, J., Hu, Y., ... & Cheng, Z. (2020). Clinical
features of patients infected with 2019 novel coronavirus in Wuhan, China. The
Lancet, 395(10223), 497-506. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5
Lam, T. T. Y., Shum, M. H. H., Zhu, H. C., Tong, Y. G., Ni, X. B., Liao, Y. S., ... & Leung,
G. M. (2020). Identifying SARS-CoV-2 related coronaviruses in Malayan
pangolins. Nature, 1-6. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-020-2169-0
Li, S. R., Tang, Z. J., Li, Z. H., & Liu, X. (2020). Searching therapeutic strategy of new
coronavirus pneumonia from angiotensin-converting enzyme 2: the target of COVID-
19 and SARS-CoV. European Journal of Clinical Microbiology & Infectious
Diseases, 1. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10096-020-03883-y
Li, Y., Zhao, R., Zheng, S., Chen, X., Wang, J., Sheng, X., ... & Fan, J. (2020). Early
Release-Lack of Vertical Transmission of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome
Coronavirus 2, China. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2606.200287
Ng, T. W., Danchin, A., & Turinici, G. (2020). A new transmission route for the propagation
of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-17870/v1
Patel, K. S., Rathi, J. C., Raghuvanshi, K., & Dhiman, N. (2020). Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-
2): Preventions, keys to diagnosis and treatment of SARS-CoV-2. Iberoamerican
Journal of Medicine, (AheadOfPrint), 0-0. http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.3715266

6MOLECULAR CELL BIOLOGY
Poon, L. L., & Peiris, M. (2020). Emergence of a novel human coronavirus threatening
human health. Nature medicine, 26(3), 317-319. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-020-
0796-5
Worldometers.info. (2020) Coronavirus Update (Live): 2,407,400 Cases and 165,071 Deaths
from COVID-19 Virus Pandemic. Retrieved 20 April 2020, from
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
Yao, T. T., Qian, J. D., Zhu, W. Y., Wang, Y., & Wang, G. Q. (2020). A Systematic Review
of Lopinavir Therapy for SARS Coronavirus and MERS Coronavirus–A Possible
Reference for Coronavirus Disease‐19 Treatment Option. Journal of medical
virology. https://doi.org/10.1002/jmv.25729
Yuen, K. S., Ye, Z. W., Fung, S. Y., Chan, C. P., & Jin, D. Y. (2020). SARS-CoV-2 and
COVID-19: The most important research questions. Cell & bioscience, 10(1), 1-5.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s13578-020-00404-4
Zhang, L., & Liu, Y. (2020). Potential interventions for novel coronavirus in China: a
systemic review. Journal of medical virology. https://www.dibellainsieme.org/wp-
content/uploads/2020/03/Potential-interventions-for-novel-coronavirus-in-China-A-
systematic-review.pdf