Stanford Medicine scientists pinpoint COVID-19 virus’s entry and exit ports inside our noses

(Stanford Medicine) A discovery by Stanford Medicine researchers and colleagues may pave the way for a “morning after” or prophylactic nasal spray to prevent infection. Somebody just coughed on you. On a plane. At a dinner party. In a supermarket line. If only there were a “morning after” nasal spray that could knock out respiratory viruses’ ability to colonize your nose and throat. In a study publishing today in the print issue of Cell, Peter Jackson, PhD, a Stanford Medicine professor of pathology and of microbiology and immunology, and his colleagues brought that possibility closer to reality by pinpointing the routes that SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 virus, takes to enter and exit cells in our nasal cavity. “Our upper airways are the launchpad not only for infection of our lungs but for transmission to others,” Jackson said.