Fifteen years ago, a medical researcher named Michel Chrétien and his longtime collaborator Majambu Mbikay, a Congolese scientist, unhatched a theory in their Montreal laboratory.
But when a new global health crisis erupted in Wuhan, China late last year, Chrétien and his team once again got to thinking. They believed the drug might work on COVID-19, which has infected nearly 80,000 people and killed 2,600, according to the World Health Organization. They knew a Swiss drug manufacturer, Quercegen Pharmaceuticals, could rapidly produce doses of the treatment in the hundreds of thousands.
Michel Chrétien has a long-standing connection to high-level scientists in China. While a student at Berkeley University, he received some training from a Chinese researcher, Dr. C.H. Li, an enduring connection that saw him visit and work in China eight times starting in 1979. In the 1980s, Chrétien was an honorary professor at the Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences and Peking Union Medical College.
The U.S.-based Food and Drug Administration has already approved quercetin as safe for human consumption, which means the researchers can skip testing on animals. If the treatment works, it’ll be readily available. Now Chrétien just needs the funding to start the trials. He estimates the teams need $5 million. But the payoff, he says, could be huge.
If successful Canada should have a new margining chip with China.
Amazing scientist
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