Pillar 1 - FTO (new thread), page-1677

The Introduction in the paper talks about the background of Rhein, its known FTO and other properties, and seems to suggest that they are following on previous research that suggests the natural "FTO eraser enzyme could be exploited as a novel potential therapeutic option by interfering with coronavirus replication and spread". And this new research work is being done because "its role in M6 RNA modulation has been poorly analysed during viral infection".

They call Rhein a "small natural molecule" so maybe the "natural" characteristic was important or maybe it was just that it had known function and it was known that it was safe. I suspect that if they had read the paper from COH last year they would have chosen to use the safe, more potent Zantrene molecule but I can't work it out.

(Of course in the article they use US spelling conventions but I prefer Aust/UK)