Seaweed may help stop COVID virus from infecting human cells: Study

ISRAEL: A substance extracted from edible marine algae may help stop the spread of coronavirus, according to a study.

Researchers from Tel Aviv University (TAU) said ulvan, the major water-soluble polysaccharide extracted from the cell wall of green seaweed, could help stop coronavirus from infecting human cells, Jerusalem Post reported.

“The lack of access to vaccines takes the lives of many victims and even accelerates the creation of new variants,” said TAU’s Prof. Alexander Golberg.

Because other research showed that certain seaweed compounds had antiviral properties, the team decided they wanted to evaluate them against COVID.

They then decided to test ulvan because it could be extracted from common seaweed.

“Ulvan is extracted from marine algae called Ulva, which is also called ‘sea lettuce’, and is food in places like Japan, New Zealand and Hawaii,” Golberg said. “It has previously been reported that ulvan is effective against viruses in agriculture and also against some of the human viruses – and when coronavirus arrived, we asked to test its activity.”

They grew Ulva algae, extracted the ulvan from it and sent it to the Southern Research Institute in Alabama. There, the US team built a cellular model to assess the activity of the substance produced in Golberg’s laboratory. The cells were exposed to both the coronavirus and to ulvan. It was found that, in the presence of ulvan, the coronavirus did not infect cells. “In other words,” he said, “ulvan prevents the cells from being infected with coronavirus.”

– THE STATESMAN