A team of researchers has found a tree in Brazil that can absolutely wreck COVID-19. Like, completely beat the tar out of it from every possible angle. And unlike the endless parade of miraculous horse medicines pushed by wellness influencers who bought secondhand microphones, this one comes with actual lab data behind it.
The plant is called Copaifera lucens Dwyer, a tree native to Brazil’s Atlantic Forest, a biologically dense patch of Earth packed with an enormous variety of plant life. Scientists from the University of São Paulo and research teams in Egypt isolated compounds from the tree’s leaves known as galloylquinic acids, then introduced them to SARS-CoV-2 to see what happened.
So What Happened? The Tree Waxed the COVID; That’s What.
According to findings published in Scientific Reports and detailed in a press release, the compounds attacked the virus across multiple stages of its life cycle. They interfered with the spike protein that allows COVID to invade human cells, disrupted the papain-like protease, the enzyme the virus uses to dodge immune responses, and blocked RNA polymerase, which COVID needs to reproduce itself inside the body.
The virus that brought the world to a standstill, killed millions, and drove many of the survivors completely insane was brought to its knees by a naturally occurring plant compound.
Researchers also found the compounds reduced viral protein production while showing anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects, meaning they may help calm the immune overreactions that made severe COVID cases so dangerous in the first place.
If Nothing Else, This Is an Argument for Biodiversity
Many antiviral drugs target only one specific part of a virus. It usually works out well, until the virus sidesteps the vaccine by mutating, as we’ve seen dozens of times with COVID-19 and its many variants. The galloylquinic acids appear to attack several systems at once, so thoroughly attacking them that it makes it more difficult for the virus to develop resistance.
The researchers noted that this is still very early on, and human and animal testing will be needed before this plant can one day become the next COVID vaccine. Still, the researchers say that this right here, this Brazilian forest plant that could potentially decimate the virus that once gripped the world, is all the argument you need in favor of protecting biodiversity. Not just because these forests are pretty, but because the next medical breakthrough might be sitting beneath the canopy.
That is, unless you prefer bulldozing these natural antiviral hotbeds in favor of building some luxury hotels and a parking lot.
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