It's interesting when you read about what Scripps has been doing to identify potential COVID-19 therapies..
In a collaboration between Calibr, the drug discovery division of Scripps Research, and a team of researchers in the institute’s Department of Immunology and Microbiology, the study tested more than 12,000 drugs in two different types of human cells infected with SARS-CoV-2.
In the Scripps Research study, the scientists treated two different types of laboratory-cultured SARS-CoV-2-infected human cells with each of the 12,000 drugs from ReFRAME. After 24 or 48 hours, they measured the level of viral infection in the cells to determine if the drugs prevented the virus from replicating. In some cases, they applied two drugs at a time to see if the compounds would work together against the virus.
“Some of the most effective antiviral strategies are ‘cocktails’ in which patients are given
several different drugs to combat the infection, such as those used to treat HIV infections,” says the study’s corresponding author Thomas Rogers, MD, PhD, an adjunct assistant professor in the Department of Immunology and Microbiology at Scripps Research and assistant professor of Medicine at UC San Diego.
From the thousands of drugs screened, the researchers identified a total of 90 compounds that prevented SARS-CoV-2 from replicating in at least one of the human cell lines. Of those, 13 had the highest potential to be repurposed as COVID-19 therapies, based on their potency, cell line-independent activity or a likely mechanism of action, pharmacokinetic properties and human safety profiles.
Based on the results of cell culture screens, the researchers tested the best-performing drug candidates in human tissue cells and an animal model to determine which are most likely to work in human patients.
Building on their success in identifying potential COVID-19 therapies, the Scripps Research team is continuing to advance other promising candidates through their drug discovery pipeline.
