Science & Wellbeing

A protein in the lung that blocks SARS-CoV-2 infection and forms a natural protective barrier in the human body has been discovered by University of Sydney scientists. is protein, the leucinerich repeat-containing protein 15 (LRRC15), is an inbuilt receptor that binds the SARSCoV-2 virus without passing on the infection.

e research opens up an entirely new area of immunology research around LRRC15 and o ers a promising pathway to develop new drugs to prevent viral infection from coronaviruses like Covid-19 or deal with brosis in the lungs.

e study has been published in the journal PLOS Biology. It was led by Professor Greg Neely with his team members Dr Lipin Loo, a postdoctoral researcher, and PhD student Matthew Waller at the Charles Perkins Centre and the School of Life and Environmental Sciences.

e University study is one of three independent papers that reveal this speci c protein’s interaction with Covid-19.

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“Alongside two other groups, one at Oxford, the other at Brown and Yale in the US, we found a new receptor in the LRRC15 protein that can stop SARS-CoV-2. We found that this new receptor acts by binding to the virus and sequestering it which reduces infection,”

Professor Neely said.

“For me, as an immunologist, the fact that there’s this natural immune receptor that we didn’t know about, that’s lining our lungs and blocks and controls virus, that’s crazily interesting.

“We can now use this new receptor to design broad act- e smallness of that number might surprise you, but it comes from a study that meticulously tracked the phone location data of more than 40,000 people over several years. Sure, every once in awhile people might take a one-o holiday to Chile or Cuba, but for the most part we each have about 25 regular spots where we spent the vast, vast majority of our time. ink Spain, Portugal or Italy.

Most of us just regularly visit the same 25 places over and over again, despite the surface of the earth being some 200 million square miles.

Scientists suggest this tendency to stick to the familiar may be the geographical equivalent of Dunbar’s number, the social science rule that states human beings simply are not wired to handle more than 150 signi cant social relationships at any one time.

But whether our tendency to stick to 25 places is hardwired into us or not, new science o ers strong