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Israeli scientists say they have identified three existing drugs that have good prospects as COVID-19 treatments, reporting that they have demonstrated great ability to fight the virus in laboratory tests.
They placed the substances with live SARS-CoV-2 and human cells in vitro. The results “showed that the drugs can protect cells from virus attack with close to 100% efficiency, which means that almost 100% of cells lived despite infection with the virus”, Professor Isaiah Arkin, Hebrew University biochemist behind the research, told The Times of Israel.
“On the other hand, under normal circumstances, about half of the cells would have died two days after contact with the virus. He added that there are strong indications that the drugs will be robust against the changing variants.
Arkin, who is part of a Hebrew University center that specializes in reusing existing drugs, said he has reviewed more than 3,000 drugs for suitability, in what he describes as research with a needle in a haystack. This approach may provide a fast track to finding treatments because the drugs have already been tried and tested, and he hopes to work with a pharmaceutical company to quickly get the drugs he has identified clinically tested for COVID-19.
“We have the vaccine, but we shouldn’t be resting on our laurels, and I would like these drugs to be part of the arsenal we are using to fight the coronavirus,” he said.
The research that paved the way for the lab trial has been peer reviewed and published, but the lab study itself has yet to be peer reviewed.
A doctor in a COVID-19 ward at Galilee Medical Center at the height of the coronavirus crisis in Israel. (Shlomi Tova)
Arkin said his optimism about the drugs’ effectiveness against future variants is based on what they target.
In the face of SARS-CoV-2, the drugs in question – darapladib, which currently treats atherosclerosis; the anti-cancer drug Flumatinib; and an HIV drug – do not target the spike protein. Rather, they target one of the other two proteins: the coat protein and protein 3a. These proteins – especially the envelope protein – barely change between variants, and even between diseases of the coronavirus family. As such, drugs that target them are likely to remain effective despite mutations, Arkin said.
The coronavirus envelope protein, one of two proteins that Hebrew University scientists target with drugs they tested in their lab (courtesy Hebrew University)
He commented: “The envelope protein of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is approximately 95% identical to that of the first SARS outbreak in 2003, while the spike protein is less than 80% identical.
Teacher. Isaiah Arkin of the Hebrew University (courtesy of Professor Isaiah Arkin)
“This means that if we had had a drug targeting the envelope protein that would have treated the SARS epidemic, there is a good chance that we would not have had to endure this pandemic.”
Until now, the envelope protein was not considered a promising target for drugs. But Arkin’s team identified it as an ion channel, a class of proteins that are found in the membranes of all organisms, which due to their structure respond particularly well to drugs – a quality exploited by pharmaceuticals. for high blood pressure, angina and many others. conditions.
Arkin said: “I am excited about the prospect of helping expand the arsenal we have against the coronavirus. When you consider what enables us to fight against HIV, hepatitis and many other diseases, it is precisely the fact that we have a variety of treatments, a vast arsenal.
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