Plants have been used as medicine for thousands of years; could they contribute to a solution to the COVID-19 pandemic? This is what Whitehead Institute Member Jing-Ke-Weng set out to address in a new paper, published May 20 in the journal Molecular Plant.
We talked to Weng about an herbal treatment being used to treat COVID-19 in China derived from Traditional Chinese Medicine, the work necessary for such a treatment to be translated to an FDA-approved drug, and why the COVID-19 pandemic underscores the need for basic, fundamental research in plant science and beyond.
Music: “Versailles” by Pierce Murphy (CC-BY 4.0), “The Minutes” by Scott Gratton (CC-BY-NC 4.0) Produced by Eva Frederick and Conor Gearin.
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