Bats might hold the key to fighting the coronavirus.
Bats are thought to be the original host for all coronaviruses, including the one now causing so much pain, but the nocturnal flying mammals might hold the key to defeating Covid-19. — Dreamstime/TNS
Starting this month, in a level-2 biosafety lab on Bucknell’s Lewisburg campus , they and colleagues will carefully thaw 240 samples of bat tissue, treat them with a chemical to deactivate any viruses within, then extract and purify any genetic material for analysis on a supercomputer. Reeder, an ardent conservationist, has been trekking to Africa every year since 2004, first to South Sudan, more recently Uganda, studying bats, chimpanzees and elephants in their natural habitat. Among other projects, she assembled a team of citizen scientists to analyse the output from automated, remote cameras in a South Sudan game preserve – a half-million images to date.
The scientists euthanise the animals sparingly, preferring to study them alive in the wild. Those that get sacrificed are seen as a precious resource, preserved with liquid nitrogen in case they prove useful for future experiments.
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