In a recent study at Rush University Medical Center, researchers found that a new potential therapy for COVID-19 has shown success in preventing the disease’s symptoms in the lab.
The drug is effective in reducing fever, protecting the lungs, improving heart function and reversing cytokine storm — the immune system overreacting to infection and flooding the bloodstream with inflammatory proteins.
The researchers also report success in preventing the disease from progression.
The study is published in the Journal of Neuroimmune Pharmacology. One author is Kalipada Pahan, Ph.D.
SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, binds to an enzyme called ACE2 to enter and infect human cells.
Many patients with COVID-19 in intensive care units suffer from cytokine storm, which affects lungs, heart and other organs.
Although anti-inflammatory therapies such as steroids are available to treat the problem, very often these treatments cause suppression of the immune system.
In the study, the team designed a new drug (a peptide with six amino acids) that inhibits the virus from binding with ACE2.
The new drug inhibits cytokines that only are produced by the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein, not other inflammatory stimuli, indicating that this peptide would not cause immunosuppression.
Although vaccines for COVID-19 are becoming available, their distribution nationally and globally will take months and possibly years in some parts of the world.
The researchers say that a specific medicine for reducing inflammatory events and treating respiratory and cardiac problems caused by COVID-19 will be necessary for better management of the disease even in the post-vaccine era.
If the results can be replicated in COVID-19 patients, it would be a remarkable advance in controlling this devastating pandemic.
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