Medicine Sars-CoV-2 research papers, articles and clips

[Snake_Baker]

I'll post this here as I doubt there would be more than 3-4 people on the SRP/club boards that could understand it.

COVID-19 therapy: What weapons do we bring into battle?

Urgent treatments, in any modality, to fight SARS-CoV-2 infections are desired by society in general, by health professionals, by Estate-leaders and, …

reader.elsevier.com

 

[Snake_Baker]

An excellent drug lead has been discovered:

Viral 'molecular scissor' is next COVID-19 drug target

by Will Sansom, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, October 16 2020.

American and Polish scientists, reporting Oct. 16 in the journal Science Advances, laid out a novel rationale for COVID-19 drug design—blocking a molecular "scissor" that the virus uses for virus production and to disable human proteins crucial to the immune response.

The researchers are from The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) and the Wroclaw University of Science and Technology. Information gleaned by the American team helped Polish chemists to develop two molecules that inhibit the cutter, an enzyme called SARS-CoV-2-PLpro.

SARS-CoV-2-PLpro promotes infection by sensing and processing both viral and human proteins, said senior author Shaun K. Olsen, Ph.D., associate professor of biochemistry and structural biology in the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio.

"This enzyme executes a double-whammy," Dr. Olsen said. "It stimulates the release of proteins that are essential for the virus to replicate, and it also inhibits molecules called cytokines and chemokines that signal the immune system to attack the infection," Dr. Olsen said.

SARS-CoV-2-PLpro cuts human proteins ubiquitin and ISG15, which help maintain protein integrity. "The enzyme acts like a molecular scissor," Dr. Olsen said. "It cleaves ubiquitin and ISG15 away from other proteins, which reverses their normal effects."


The SARS-CoV-2-PLpro enzyme is visualized with an inset of viral inhibitor interaction. Blocking the enzyme's effects may prove fruitful in stopping coronavirus infections. Credit: Shaun K. Olsen, PhD, laboratory at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio (Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long School of Medicine)

Dr. Olsen's team, which recently moved to the Long School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio from the Medical University of South Carolina, solved the three-dimensional structures of SARS-CoV-2-PLpro and the two inhibitor molecules, which are called VIR250 and VIR251. X-ray crystallography was performed at the Argonne National Laboratory near Chicago.

"Our collaborator, Dr. Marcin Drag, and his team developed the inhibitors, which are very efficient at blocking the activity of SARS-CoV-2-PLpro, yet do not recognize other similar enzymes in human cells," Dr. Olsen said. "This is a critical point: The inhibitor is specific for this one viral enzyme and doesn't cross-react with human enzymes with a similar function."

Specificity will be a key determinant of therapeutic value down the road, he said.

The American team also compared SARS-CoV-2-PLpro against similar enzymes from coronaviruses of recent decades, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS. They learned that SARS-CoV-2-PLpro processes ubiquitin and ISG15 much differently than its SARS-1 counterpart.

"One of the key questions is whether that accounts for some of the differences we see in how those viruses affect humans, if at all," Dr. Olsen said.

By understanding similarities and differences of these enzymes in various coronaviruses, it may be possible to develop inhibitors that are effective against multiple viruses, and these inhibitors potentially could be modified when other coronavirus variants emerge in the future, he said.

https://medicalxpress.com/pdf522085559.pdf

The research paper: https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/6/42/eabd4596

 

[Chubberson]

There is so much information coming out now regarding Ivermectin and Remdesivir for the treatment of Covid. Paul Marik and Pierre Kory and co have done some great work with the Front Line Critical Care Alliance (FLCCC). One very balanced article in among those links for and against and some truly mind boggling data available through those.

Unless you are a Doctor or a Pharmacist/Scientist some of the data won't make sense. Like a few that seemed to not like this information on another thread. My wife took a little time to read through this stuff (Masters of Advanced Clinical Pharmacy and Microbiology) as she is a little more savvy with it than her tradesman husband and gave me a some explanation. Her brother seems to think one reason there is pushback against this treatment option is that it is cheap, and readily available in large quantities quite quickly. He is an Internal Medicine Doctor in the Philippines.

As someone (taxpayer) who will be footing the bill for any potential treatment (vax or other) I would be interested in a cheaper solution that is just as effective. We have already shelled out for the covid payment and can treat it at a fraction of the cost.

I just wanted to leave these links here for any Medically minded people and see potentially what their take is on Ivermectin/Remdesivir as a treatment option for Covid.

Doctors cure 6,000 patients with Covid-19 with Ivermectin

<p>Group of doctors highlight results of successes in more than 6,000 patients with Covid-19 treated with the drug ivermectin. Santo Domingo, DR At least 6,000 Covid-19 positive patients have been treated with excellent results using the drug ivermectin, by doctors belonging to the Rescue group...

dominicantoday.com

Home

FLCCC is The Frontline COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance: Dedicated to COVID prevention & treatment, empowering individuals for better health.

covid19criticalcare.com

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.12.23.424232v1.full.pdf

What's Behind the Ivermectin-for-COVID Buzz?

Maverick physicians spurn randomized trials while 'people are dying'

www.medpagetoday.com

 

[Chubberson]

This too. Treatment status of Ivermectin has been changed on the NIH website. Great news.