{"id":2608,"date":"2020-04-07T11:05:28","date_gmt":"2020-04-07T10:05:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/?p=2608"},"modified":"2020-04-15T16:12:16","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T15:12:16","slug":"new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/","title":{"rendered":"New research identifies potential drug combinations to treat COVID-19"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"lead\">Researchers from the University of Kent, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the University of Marburg, Germany, have identified a drug combination with the potential to provide a treatment for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p>The international team led by Professor Jindrich Cinatl (Institute of Medical Virology, Goethe-University), Professor <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/people\/648\/michaelis-martin\">Martin Michaelis<\/a>, and Dr <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/people\/1137\/wass-mark\">Mark Wass<\/a> (both <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\">School of Biosciences<\/a>) compared SARS-CoV-2 (the coronavirus that causes COVID-19) with its close relative SARS-CoV (the virus that caused the SARS outbreak in 2002\/03) in a combined computational and cell culture study.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.biorxiv.org\/content\/10.1101\/2020.04.03.024257v1\">The work<\/a> identified substantial differences between the two viruses. They differed in the type of cells that they could infect and in their drug sensitivity profiles. Drugs active against SARS-CoV are not always effective against SARS-CoV-2. Mark Wass said: \u201c<em>These two closely related viruses still seem to differ in many ways.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The approved protease inhibitor aprotinin (used against bleeding during complex surgery) was active against SARS-CoV-2 in the same therapeutic concentrations used to treat patients. Aprotinin aerosols are approved in Russia for the treatment of influenza, hence similar preparations may be used to treat COVID-19. The efficacy of aprotinin was further enhanced when used in combination with the drug omeprazole, a proton pump inhibitor often used to treat heartburn. Omeprazole also increased the anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity of remdesivir, an antiviral drug that is currently being investigated for the treatment of COVID-19 patients.<\/p>\n<p>Martin Michaelis said: \u201c<em>This is promising. Aprotinin and omeprazole show activity against SARS-CoV-2 in concentrations that can be achieved in patients. Since these are drugs with known clinical profiles, they could be quickly tested in COVID-19 patients.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Find <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kent.ac.uk\/news\/covid19\/24973\/eastern-arc-researchers-collaborate-to-develop-covid-19-vaccine\">more<\/a> on this story at the University of Kent\u2019s News Centre.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Image: <\/strong><em>Molecular detail of how the spike protein on the surface of the SARS-CoV-2 virus (red and grey) interacts with the ACE2 receptor protein on human cells (blue and cyan). This interaction is an essential step for infection.<\/em><\/p>\n<ul class=\"kent-social-links\"><li><a href='http:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/&amp;t=New research identifies potential drug combinations to treat COVID-19' target='_blank'><i class='ksocial-facebook' title='Share via Facebook'><\/i><\/a><\/li><li><a href='http:\/\/twitter.com\/home?status=New research identifies potential drug combinations to treat COVID-19%20https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/' target='_blank'><i class='ksocial-twitter' title='Share via Twitter'><\/i><\/a><\/li><li><a href='https:\/\/plus.google.com\/share?url=https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/' target='_blank'><i class='ksocial-google-plus' title='Share via Google Plus'><\/i><\/a><\/li><li><a href='http:\/\/linkedin.com\/shareArticle?mini=true&amp;url=https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/&amp;title=New research identifies potential drug combinations to treat COVID-19' target='_blank'><i class='ksocial-linkedin' title='Share via Linked In'><\/i><\/a><\/li><li><a href='mailto:content=https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/&amp;title=New research identifies potential drug combinations to treat COVID-19' target='_blank'><i class='ksocial-email' title='Share via Email'><\/i><\/a><\/li><\/ul>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Researchers from the University of Kent, Goethe-University Frankfurt am Main, Germany, and the University of Marburg, Germany, have identified a drug combination with the potential &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/2020\/04\/07\/new-research-identifies-potential-drug-combinations-to-treat-covid-19\/\">Read&nbsp;more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5212,"featured_media":2619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[24338,80390,124],"tags":[184253,167396,80442,70,80425,80445],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5212"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2608"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2626,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2608\/revisions\/2626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.kent.ac.uk\/biosciences\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}