The dream team: Scientists find drug duo that may cure COVID-19 together
Preclinical experiments show that the drugs cepharanthine and nelfinavir may be effective treatments for COVID-19
2021-06-03
(Press-News.org) COVID-19 continues to claim lives across the world and is infecting millions more. Although several vaccines have recently become available, making significant strides towards preventing COVID-19, what about the treatment of those who already have the infection? Vaccines aren't 100% effective, highlighting the need--now more than ever--for effective antiviral therapeutics. Moreover, some people can't receive vaccines due to health issues, and new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that can penetrate vaccine-conferred immunity, are being reported, indicating that we need to think beyond prevention.
Given this need, a team of researchers based in Japan, the US, and the UK launched a project to develop effective therapeutics. This team included several researchers based at Tokyo University of Science: Visiting Professor Koichi Watashi, Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi, Professor Shin Aoki, Professor Kouji Kuramochi, and Assistant Professor Tomohiro Tanaka. Their goal was clear and simple: finding a cure for COVID-19.
To achieve this goal, the researchers first established an experimental system for screening drugs that may help to control infections. This system used a type of cells called VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cells, which were manipulated to efficiently be infected with and produce SARS-CoV-2. "To determine whether a drug of interest could help combat infection by SARS-CoV-2, we simply had to expose VeroE6/TMPRSS2 cells to both the drug and SARS-CoV-2 and then observe whether the drug's presence served to hinder the virus's efforts to infect cells," explains Professor Watashi.
The researchers used this experimental system to screen a panel of drugs that are already approved for clinical use, including drugs like remdesivir and chloroquine that have already being approved or are being trialed as treatments for COVID-19. In an exciting outcome, the researchers found two drugs that provided effective SARS-CoV-2 suppression: cepharanthine, which is used to treat inflammation, and nelfinavir, which is approved for the treatment of HIV infection.
Cepharanthine inhibited the entry of the virus into cells by preventing the virus from binding to a protein on the cell membrane, which it uses as a gateway. In contrast, nelfinavir worked to prevent the virus from replicating inside the cell by inhibiting a protein that the virus relies on for replication. Given that these drugs have distinct antiviral mechanisms, using both of them together could be especially effective for patients, with computational models predicting that combined cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy can hasten the clearance of SARS-CoV-2 from a patient's lungs by as few as 4.9 days.
So, does this mean we will be seeing these new drugs in COVID-19 treatment centers? Of course, the drug duo isn't ready to be rolled out into healthcare systems just yet. These findings justify further research into the clinical potential of cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy, and only following this can we say for sure that it is useful and helpful.
Nevertheless, given the ongoing nature of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ever-increasing death toll, the development of cepharanthine/nelfinavir therapy may provide clinicians and patients with a much-needed new treatment option.
INFORMATION:
Reference
Title of original paper: Potential anti-COVID-19 agents, cepharanthine and nelfinavir, and their usage for combination treatment
Journal: iScience
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102367
About The Tokyo University of Science
Tokyo University of Science (TUS) is a well-known and respected university, and the largest science-specialized private research university in Japan, with four campuses in central Tokyo and its suburbs and in Hokkaido. Established in 1881, the university has continually contributed to Japan's development in science through inculcating the love for science in researchers, technicians, and educators.
With a mission of "Creating science and technology for the harmonious development of nature, human beings, and society", TUS has undertaken a wide range of research from basic to applied science. TUS has embraced a multidisciplinary approach to research and undertaken intensive study in some of today's most vital fields. TUS is a meritocracy where the best in science is recognized and nurtured. It is the only private university in Japan that has produced a Nobel Prize winner and the only private university in Asia to produce Nobel Prize winners within the natural sciences field.
Website: https://www.tus.ac.jp/en/mediarelations/
About Professor Koichi Watashi from Tokyo University of Science
Dr. Koichi Watashi is the Director of the Division of Drug Development, Research Center for Drug and Vaccine Development, at the Japanese National Institute of Infectious Diseases and a Visiting Professor at the Tokyo University of Science Graduate School of Science and Technology. His main research interests include virus-host interaction mechanisms and the development of antivirals. He has authored more than 140 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and he has received several prestigious professional awards from organizations such as the Japanese Cancer Association, the Japanese Society for Virology, and the Japanese Society of Hepatology.
About Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi from Tokyo University of Science
Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi, the first author of this paper, is a researcher affiliated to the Department of Virology II, National Institute of Infectious Diseases, and the Department of Applied Biological Sciences, Tokyo University of Science. He has authored 18 papers in peer-reviewed scientific journals, and he has received awards from International Symposium on Hepatitis C Virus and related viruses. His key research interests focus molecular biology of positive-strand RNA viruses, mainly SARS-CoV, SARS-CoV-2, and the hepatitis C virus.
Funding information
This work was supported by the Japanese Agency for Medical Research and Development, the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science, the Japan Science and Technology Agency, and the Wellcome Trust.
[Attachments] See images for this press release:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-06-03
Stanford University computer science graduate student Mackenzie Leake has been quilting since age 10, but she never imagined the craft would be the focus of her doctoral dissertation. Included in that work is new prototype software that can facilitate pattern-making for a form of quilting called foundation paper piecing, which involves using a backing made of foundation paper to lay out and sew a quilted design.
Developing a foundation paper piece quilt pattern - which looks similar to a paint-by-numbers outline - is often non-intuitive. There are few formal guidelines for patterning and those that ...
2021-06-03
Humans regularly exert a powerful influence on the survival and persistence of species, yet social-science information is used only sporadically in conservation decisions.
Researchers at Colorado State University and The Ohio State University have created an index depicting the mix of social values among people across all 50 states, providing data that can be useful for wildlife conservation policy and management.
As a specific illustration, the research team found a supportive social context for gray wolf reintroduction in Colorado. Last fall, citizens ...
2021-06-03
NEW YORK CITY, June 2, 2021 -- New research from Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) medical oncologist Dean Bajorin, MD, and colleagues found that patients who received nivolumab (Opdivo®) after bladder cancer surgery reduced their overall risk for high-grade bladder cancer recurrence. This research was published in the New England Journal of Medicine.
In this phase III randomized study, Dr. Bajorin and a team of investigators evaluated 709 patients who were at high risk for recurrence of urothelial cancer after removal of their bladder, ureter, or kidney for high-grade cancer. To evaluate for benefit, patients were randomized to receive either nivolumab or a placebo every two weeks for one year. Patients and ...
2021-06-03
A complex zone of folding and faulting that links two faults underneath downtown Salt Lake City could deform the ground during a large earthquake, according to a new study.
The findings, published in the open-access journal The Seismic Record, suggest that earthquakes magnitude 5.0 and larger could cause ground displacement and liquefaction in Salt Lake City that increase the risk of earthquake-related building damage.
As part of the Wasatch Fault Zone, the region has a complex seismic history, with at least 24 large earthquakes occurring in the urbanized parts of the zone over the past 7000 years. Along with previous excavation, borehole and other geophysical studies, the new research also supports the possibility of through-going ruptures ...
2021-06-03
At the upcoming Conference of the Parties (COP26) in November, ample discussion is likely to focus on how the world is not on track to meet the Paris Agreement's goals of stopping warming at well below 2°C. According to a new University of California San Diego article published in Nature Energy, world diplomats will, however, find encouraging signs in emerging clean energy technology "niches"--countries, states or corporations--that are pioneering decarbonization.
"In certain areas, adoption rates for solar and wind turbines, as well as electric vehicles are very high and increasing every year," write the authors of the opinion piece Ryan Hanna, assistant research scientist at UC San Diego's Center ...
2021-06-03
TAMPA, Fla. -- There are several new treatment options available for patients with advanced melanoma. While these therapies have greatly improved the prognosis for patients, each person can respond to the treatments differently. Treatment of melanomas that have spread to the central nervous system is especially challenging. In a new article published in Clinical Cancer Research, Moffitt Cancer Center researchers reveal how different therapies impact the surrounding immune environment of metastatic melanoma tumors according to location and identify a rare population of immune cells that is associated with improved overall survival.
Different types of cancer tend to spread to specific sites throughout the body. Common sites of melanoma ...
2021-06-03
The pros make it look easy, but making a movie with a drone can be anything but.
First, it takes skill to fly the often expensive pieces of equipment smoothly and without crashing. And once you've mastered flying, there are camera angles, panning speeds, trajectories and flight paths to plan.
With all the sensors and processing power onboard a drone and embedded in its camera, there must be a better way to capture the perfect shot.
"Sometimes you just want to tell the drone to make an exciting video," said Rogerio Bonatti, a Ph.D. candidate in Carnegie Mellon University's Robotics Institute.
Bonatti was part ...
2021-06-03
North Carolina State University researchers have developed a computer simulation tool to predict when and where pests and diseases will attack crops or forests, and also test when to apply pesticides or other management strategies to contain them.
"It's like having a bunch of different Earths to experiment on to test how something will work before spending the time, money and effort to do it," said the study's lead author Chris Jones, research scholar at North Carolina State University's Center for Geospatial Analytics.
In the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, researchers reported on their efforts to develop and test ...
2021-06-03
KINGSTON, R.I. - June 3, 2021 - Scientists from the University of Rhode Island have taken the first steps toward understanding the function of microbes that live on and in Eastern oysters, which may have implications for oyster health and the management of oyster reefs and aquaculture facilities.
"Marine invertebrates like oysters, corals and sponges have a very active microbiome that could potentially play a role in the function of the organism itself," said Ying Zhang, URI associate professor of cell and molecular biology. "We know very little about whether there are resident microbes in oysters, and if there are, what their function may be or how they may help or bring harm to the oyster."
Zhang and doctoral student Zachary Pimentel extracted the DNA of microbes living in ...
2021-06-03
ANN ARBOR, Mich. -- A different type of surge may be on the way more than a year into the pandemic - a baby surge.
The COVID-19 shutdown initially seemed to hit pause on pregnancy and birth rates, new research from one major hospital system suggests, but that trend is quickly reversing.
"Birth rates declined early on in the pandemic, but we expect a dramatic rebound soon," says lead author Molly Stout, M.D., MSci, maternal fetal medicine director at Michigan Medicine Von Voigtlander Women's Hospital.
"We're already seeing signs of a summer baby surge."
While infectious ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] The dream team: Scientists find drug duo that may cure COVID-19 together
Preclinical experiments show that the drugs cepharanthine and nelfinavir may be effective treatments for COVID-19
