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posted by martyb on Thursday July 16 2020, @05:57PM   Printer-friendly
from the worth-a-shot dept.

Common FDA-approved drug may effectively neutralize virus that causes COVID-19:

A common drug, already approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), may also be a powerful tool in fighting COVID-19, according to research published this week in Antiviral Research.

SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, uses a surface spike protein to latch onto human cells and initiate infection. But heparin, a blood thinner also available in non-anticoagulant varieties, binds tightly with the surface spike protein, potentially blocking the infection from happening. This makes it a decoy, which might be introduced into the body using a nasal spray or nebulizer and run interference to lower the odds of infection. Similar decoy strategies have already shown promise in curbing other viruses, including influenza A, Zika, and dengue.

"This approach could be used as an early intervention to reduce the infection among people who have tested positive, but aren't yet suffering symptoms. But we also see this as part of a larger antiviral strategy," said Robert Linhardt, lead author and a professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. "Ultimately, we want a vaccine, but there are many ways to combat a virus, and as we've seen with HIV, with the right combination of therapies, we can control the disease until a vaccine is found."

To infect a cell, a virus must first latch onto a specific target on the cell surface, slice through the cell membrane, and insert its own genetic instructions, hijacking the cellular machinery within to produce replicas of the virus. But the virus could just as easily be persuaded to lock onto a decoy molecule, provided that molecule offers the same fit as the cellular target. Once bound to a decoy, the virus would be neutralized, unable to infect a cell or free itself, and would eventually degrade.

[...] "That's exceptional, extremely tight binding," said Jonathan Dordick, a chemical and biological engineering professor at Rensselaer who is collaborating with Linhardt to develop the decoy strategy. "It's hundreds of thousands of times tighter than a typical antibody antigen. Once it binds, it's not going to come off."

Journal Reference:
So Young Kima, Weihua Jin, Amika Sood, et al. Characterization of heparin and severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) spike glycoprotein binding interactions [$], (DOI: 10.1016/j.antiviral.2020.104873)


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  • (Score: 4, Insightful) by DannyB on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:40PM (4 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 16 2020, @06:40PM (#1022507) Journal

    Can they not simply add a new coloring or coating or some trivial modification to enable them to re-patent it?

    Without patents, we could be facing the danger a drug being made by many manufacturers, with low prices and easy availability.

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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by Opportunist on Thursday July 16 2020, @08:10PM (2 children)

    by Opportunist (5545) on Thursday July 16 2020, @08:10PM (#1022552)

    We can't have that, affordable medication, that sounds like communism!

    • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @08:17PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @08:17PM (#1022557)

      I didn't force a bunch of lab techs to work overtime just to sell drugs at reasonable prices! Does no one care about freedom anymore?

      • (Score: 2) by Opportunist on Friday July 17 2020, @10:03AM

        by Opportunist (5545) on Friday July 17 2020, @10:03AM (#1022818)

        Careful there, a friend of mine and hobby chemist got into trouble because he was working overtime and manufactured affordable drugs.

  • (Score: 3, Informative) by istartedi on Thursday July 16 2020, @11:19PM

    by istartedi (123) on Thursday July 16 2020, @11:19PM (#1022627) Journal

    Can they not simply add a new coloring or coating or some trivial modification to enable them to re-patent it?

    Maybe not, but they can Do a few clinical trials, re-name it, and mark it up astronomically [wikipedia.org]

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