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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)
(Score: 2, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:41PM (23 children)
Public service announcement that gay women are cleaner than anyone else by every single measure of STDs except, if i remember right, an almost insignificant measure of one mild strain of chlamydia :) The problem is male biology, not gays in general. Men are filthy.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 16 2020, @10:53PM (7 children)
Says the menstruator.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 17 2020, @01:30AM (3 children)
Menstruation isn't a disease, honey :) And we have these wonderful inventions called pads, tampons, and even the moon cup for the crunchier granola types out there than I.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @01:34PM (2 children)
You said women were cleaner than men.
Menstruation with its bloody, fishy mess is not clean. Who denies that?
I accept both sexes as they are, but being lesbian, penises gross you out. Penises are as vital to life as menstruation. Nothing "wrong" with them.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:24AM (1 child)
Believe it or not, it's not dicks that gross me out, it's who and what they're attached to. I think they're pretty silly-looking, but not outright gross. Would be kind of hypocritical for someone who owns a strapon otherwise, right?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2020, @02:08AM
<3
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Friday July 17 2020, @03:26AM (2 children)
It's been said before: If HIV is God's punishment, then nonbisexual lesbians are God's chosen.
-- hendrik
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @01:37PM (1 child)
Normal people and people who aren't IV druggies have nothing to fear from HIV. It remains a disease of deviants to this day. Other STDs may be a threat, but not HIV. Sorry.
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Friday July 17 2020, @03:26PM
Normal people these days sleep around. Maybe it's a smaller problem in Utah, but it's still a problem for anyone who doesn't exclusively start having sex with virgins.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @02:41AM (8 children)
I see no problem with male biology, so that remark is likely an expression of opinion.
Presenting it as a fact is disingenuous and potentially offensive.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Friday July 17 2020, @02:53AM (7 children)
The numbers say what they say. Gay women are cleanest, followed by straights of both sexes (I forget the order), trailed by gay men. The common factor is men. We can speculate as to why this is so (relative levels of promiscuity, relative risks of any given sexual behavior, etc.) but those risk factors have their roots in biology too. Having multiple partners is dangerous, penetrative sex is dangerous, semen carries disease, and damage to the rectal and colonic mucosa is a disease vector.
This is not to say all men without exception are STD carriers, just that due to the above reasons they are statistically more likely to be, and certain men more than others. Of course a monogamous gay man is likely to be much cleaner than a promiscuous straight man, and a lesbian with a lot of partners is going to be more of a risk than a monogamous one.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 17 2020, @03:17AM (5 children)
Careful with that Nirvana [wikipedia.org] of yours, keep it under control; you're balancing on the brink of saying sexual reproduction is a problem.
Do you really-really feel the need of publicly demonstrating your life-style superiority, or maybe your superiority, to the point of indulging in fallacies?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @05:18AM
You wrote "fallacies" and I read "phalluses".
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @08:36AM (1 child)
As a straight male I read those comments as factual observations. Not feeling attacked in any way, you must have some insecurities about your sexual proclivities ;)
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 17 2020, @09:28AM
I'm not objecting to the factual observations, I'm objecting to the conclusions derived from them ("The problem is is male biology, " followed by "Gay women are cleanest, followed by straights of both sexes (I forget the order), trailed by gay men.")
I'm quite sure STD-es aren't the most critical things when considering the various compromises leading to the evolution of procreation by penetrative sex for a significant enough part of the animal regnum. Were it to be such a big problem, all the species relying on this mode would simply have gone extinct after such a long time [wikipedia.org] (or evolve into something not using it).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:21AM (1 child)
No, I just find it 1) hilarious and 2) a useful counterpoint to the conservative wharrgarbl about "hurr hurr duh homer-sexshuls are pits of plague and filth!!11111one"
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 18 2020, @01:27AM
Got it. Now. I mean only now.
(maybe you can work it next time in the first post, causes for the Poe's law and whatnot? Anyway, fridays are just not my days lately)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:11AM
Not really, there's a very good reason why gay men wound up with highest rate of infection, there's no actual sex ed being provided for them and asking a doctor tends to lead to responses between "I don't know" and "Get the hell out of this office faggot." Back during the height of the AIDS epidemic before people knew much about what was really going on, it was even worse.
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 17 2020, @05:13AM (1 child)
> Men are filthy.
Inherently, or by bad habits?
(Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:22AM
Mostly bad habits, though some of it is down to basic biology unfortunately.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by RS3 on Friday July 17 2020, @06:25AM (1 child)
BTW, that's a very interesting perspective. I've thought of women as being more vulnerable to disease than men, but I see your point that men are more the disease carriers and spreaders.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 18 2020, @12:14AM
It's more a byproduct of the worst STI of all, pregnancy. Women have gotten more sexually active in recent years due to effective birth control methods and less risky abortion options, but ultimately, there's much more incentive for women to be careful than there is for me.
(Score: 0, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 17 2020, @06:14PM
Men are filthy.
And ugly! Especially the pastel colored ones! That why they hate black people, you know. The black man is pretty. Just ask Mohamed Ali. The white man is jealous
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 20 2020, @05:05AM
Best way to avoid STD is continence. You're welcome.
Account abandoned.