Pitt scientists say new drug discovery could treat and prevent COVID-19

[steelepulse]

https://www.wtae.com/article/pitt-scientists-new-drug-discovery-covid-19-ab8/34017819#

 

"Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they have identified a small molecule that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19."Pitt scientists worked with colleagues from several other universities and published their findings in the journal Cell on Monday. 

 

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(20)31148-X

 

Early days, yet good news.  

 

 

[Poet]

8 minutes ago, steelepulse said:

Early days, yet good news.  

Thanks for posting this, but could you cut n' paste the WTAE.com article here? That website is not available to those of us outside America.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Poet

[Pottinger]

Mostly biochemical jargon, but confirms what the OP stated:

 

"Novel COVID-19 therapeutics are urgently needed. We generated a phage-displayed human antibody V_H domain library from which we identified a high-affinity V_H binder ab8. Bivalent V_H, V_H-Fc ab8 bound with high avidity to membrane-associated S glycoprotein and to mutants found in patients. It potently neutralized mouse adapted SARS-CoV-2 in wild type mice at a dose as low as 2 mg/kg and exhibited high prophylactic and therapeutic efficacy in a hamster model of SARS-CoV-2 infection, possibly enhanced by its relatively small size. Electron microscopy combined with scanning mutagenesis identified ab8 interactions with all three S protomers and showed how ab8 neutralized the virus by directly interfering with ACE2 binding. V_H-Fc ab8 did not aggregate and did not bind to 5300 human membrane-associated proteins. The potent neutralization activity of V_H-Fc ab8 combined with good developability properties and cross-reactivity to SARS-CoV-2 mutants provide a strong rationale for its evaluation as a COVID-19 therapeutic."

[Poet]

2 minutes ago, Pottinger said:

Mostly biochemical jargon, but confirms what the OP stated

Yeah, sounds promising.

[Poet]

TLDR:

Selecting from a massive library of bacteriophages, they are finding the ones that prime your antibodies to target the Coronavirus, to prevent you developing Covid-19 if exposed to it or, if you already have Covid-19, to boost your body's ability to fight it.

So, both a prophylactic and a treatment.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Poet

[Mavideol]

14 minutes ago, Poet said:

Thanks for posting this, but could you cut n' paste the WTAE.com article here? That website is not available to those of us outside America.
High potency of a bivalent human VH domain in SARS-CoV-2 animal models - showPdf.pdf

enjoy the reading 41 pages

[Poet]

2 minutes ago, Mavideol said:

enjoy the reading 41 pages

Thank you, but isn't that the paper from Cell.com? That is available internationally and I had already read it.

Is the blocked WTAE.com article just the same paper?

Again, thank you, I appreciate the effort.

 

[Poet]

I was able to get the text of the WTAE.com article via a proxy, but not the accompanying video:

Pitt scientists say new drug discovery could treat and prevent COVID-19

News conference touting 'scientific breakthrough in COVID-19 drug development' scheduled for Tuesday

PITTSBURGH —

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they have identified a small molecule that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

They say it's a small piece of an antibody, and that it has been used to construct a drug that might be used to treat or even prevent COVID-19.

Pitt scientists worked with colleagues from several other universities and published their findings in the journal Cell on Monday. They say the drug -- Ab8 -- prevents and treats coronavirus infection in mice and hamsters, and there are good indications that it could eventually be used to treat people.

"Ab8 not only has potential as therapy for COVID-19, but it also could be used to keep people from getting SARS-CoV-2 infections," said Dr. John Mellors, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Pitt and UPMC. "Antibodies of larger size have worked against other infectious diseases and have been well tolerated, giving us hope that it could be an effective treatment for patients with COVID-19 and for protection of those who have never had the infection and are not immune."

A UPMC-backed company is licensing Ab8 for development around the world. A timeline wasn't immediately clear.

Mellors and other UPMC and Pitt leaders were expected to discuss more details at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Poet

[Mavideol]

10 minutes ago, Poet said:

Thank you, but isn't that the paper from Cell.com? That is available internationally and I had already read it.

Is the blocked WTAE.com article just the same paper?

Again, thank you, I appreciate the effort.

 

the article refers to the one by Cell

 

PITTSBURGH —

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they have identified a small molecule that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

They say it's a small piece of an antibody, and that it has been used to construct a drug that might be used to treat or even prevent COVID-19.

Pitt scientists worked with colleagues from several other universities and published their findings in the journal Cell on Monday. They say the drug -- Ab8 -- prevents and treats coronavirus infection in mice and hamsters, and there are good indications that it could eventually be used to treat people.

"Ab8 not only has potential as therapy for COVID-19, but it also could be used to keep people from getting SARS-CoV-2 infections," said Dr. John Mellors, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Pitt and UPMC. "Antibodies of larger size have worked against other infectious diseases and have been well tolerated, giving us hope that it could be an effective treatment for patients with COVID-19 and for protection of those who have never had the infection and are not immune."

A UPMC-backed company is licensing Ab8 for development around the world. A timeline wasn't immediately clear.

Mellors and other UPMC and Pitt leaders were expected to discuss more details at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

 

9 v

 

[Poet]

1 minute ago, Mavideol said:

the article refers to the one by Cell

Yes, thanks again ????

 

[Mavideol]

4 minutes ago, Poet said:

I was able to get the text of the WTAE.com article via a proxy, but not the accompanying video:

Pitt scientists say new drug discovery could treat and prevent COVID-19

News conference touting 'scientific breakthrough in COVID-19 drug development' scheduled for Tuesday

PITTSBURGH —

Scientists at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine say they have identified a small molecule that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19.

They say it's a small piece of an antibody, and that it has been used to construct a drug that might be used to treat or even prevent COVID-19.

Pitt scientists worked with colleagues from several other universities and published their findings in the journal Cell on Monday. They say the drug -- Ab8 -- prevents and treats coronavirus infection in mice and hamsters, and there are good indications that it could eventually be used to treat people.

"Ab8 not only has potential as therapy for COVID-19, but it also could be used to keep people from getting SARS-CoV-2 infections," said Dr. John Mellors, chief of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Pitt and UPMC. "Antibodies of larger size have worked against other infectious diseases and have been well tolerated, giving us hope that it could be an effective treatment for patients with COVID-19 and for protection of those who have never had the infection and are not immune."

A UPMC-backed company is licensing Ab8 for development around the world. A timeline wasn't immediately clear.

Mellors and other UPMC and Pitt leaders were expected to discuss more details at a news conference on Tuesday afternoon.

 

48 seconds video just saying exactly the same as it's written below

[Jingthing]

Fantastic news if it proves to be safe and effective in actual treatments for humans.

But way premature to pop the champagne. 

[Poet]

1 minute ago, Mavideol said:

48 seconds video just saying exactly the same as it's written below

Yeah, I guess some people prefer just watching the video ????

BTW, I really hate how the EU have effectively broken the Internet by forcing the GDPR on nations over which they should have no juristiction.

Not only have a bunch of useful websites simply decided to block all traffic from outside the US, but we now all have to keep clicking those bloody permission boxes for cookies.

Has anyone ever actually read the details or refused permission? I'm pretty sure everyone just instally presses Okay. In twenty years, millions of people will have RSI thanks to that stupid law.

[Poet]

12 minutes ago, Jingthing said:

Fantastic news if it proves to be safe and effective in actual treatments for humans.

Sounds like it would be. Fairly simple mechanism. They could be certain that bacteriophages themselves wouldn't cause any damage, and I presume they can be produced at scale. I would imagine they would use some sort of inhaler to get them into your body.

I am guessing this will end up being used as a treatment rather than a prophylactic for the general population. It is unlikely the effect on the antibodies would last long enough for this to be practical as a form of vaccine. So, yeah, probably just something that they would dose the sick with, in addition to a number of other treatments they've discovered over the past few months, all slightly increasing the odds of survival.

At a certain point, with deaths already plummeting, you have to wonder whether all the current extreme measures are really necessary. If they can scale up this and the other treatments, it might be time to recognize that the lockdowns are going to end up causing more death and misery than Covid.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Poet

[ezzra]

Everyone knows that the first one to come up with the vaccine will make like billions in profits almost immediately...

[Poet]

3 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Everyone knows that the first one to come up with the vaccine will make like billions in profits almost immediately...

Even the treatments we're not even sure are helping much are already making billions.

Hell, even masks make billions. That sketchy Governor Newsom in California made a secret deal to spend a billion on masks from China.

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by Poet

[Jingthing]

12 minutes ago, ezzra said:

Everyone knows that the first one to come up with the vaccine will make like billions in profits almost immediately...

This isn't a vaccine.

 

On top of treatments what works in the test tube quite often does not work on humans.

 

 

[partington]

2 hours ago, Poet said:

Sounds like it would be. Fairly simple mechanism. They could be certain that bacteriophages themselves wouldn't cause any damage, and I presume they can be produced at scale. I would imagine they would use some sort of inhaler to get them into your body.

I am guessing this will end up being used as a treatment rather than a prophylactic for the general population. It is unlikely the effect on the antibodies would last long enough for this to be practical as a form of vaccine. So, yeah, probably just something that they would dose the sick with, in addition to a number of other treatments they've discovered over the past few months, all slightly increasing the odds of survival.

At a certain point, with deaths already plummeting, you have to wonder whether all the current extreme measures are really necessary. If they can scale up this and the other treatments, it might be time to recognize that the lockdowns are going to end up causing more death and misery than Covid.

 

You're misunderstanding a bit what is being done here. 

 

The fragment of the antibody is the drug, not the bacteriophage.   There would be no point in putting bacteriophages into human beings as nothing would happen.  As their name suggests bacteriophages are viruses that infect bacteria only, not human body cells. They are a tool to induce bacteria to synthesise a protein you want.

 

The drug is made by by infecting bacteria not humans with the bacteriophage - the bacteria then make the antibody protein fragment, which is isolated and purified from bacterial cultures, and this protein fragment would be injected into patients. It is then directly acting as a neutralising antibody itself, it isn't priming your immune system to do anything.

 

An injection of an antibody, any antibody,  can never itself be a vaccine, because a vaccine is an antigen - a thing that your body makes antibodies to.

 

 

Edited September 15, 2020 by partington

[oompie69]

7 hours ago, Poet said:

Yeah, I guess some people prefer just watching the video ????

BTW, I really hate how the EU have effectively broken the Internet by forcing the GDPR on nations over which they should have no juristiction.

Not only have a bunch of useful websites simply decided to block all traffic from outside the US, but we now all have to keep clicking those bloody permission boxes for cookies.

Has anyone ever actually read the details or refused permission? I'm pretty sure everyone just instally presses Okay. In twenty years, millions of people will have RSI thanks to that stupid law.

"BTW, I really hate how the EU have effectively broken the Internet by forcing the GDPR on nations over which they should have no juristiction."

 

Not sure exactly how the internet works, but I am under the impression that the USA owns the internet. so, if anybody can control what sites can be viewed it might be them. I am sure there are others on thism forum who will know more.

[Dumbastheycome]

7 hours ago, Poet said:

Sounds like it would be. Fairly simple mechanism. They could be certain that bacteriophages themselves wouldn't cause any damage, and I presume they can be produced at scale. I would imagine they would use some sort of inhaler to get them into your body.

I am guessing this will end up being used as a treatment rather than a prophylactic for the general population. It is unlikely the effect on the antibodies would last long enough for this to be practical as a form of vaccine. So, yeah, probably just something that they would dose the sick with, in addition to a number of other treatments they've discovered over the past few months, all slightly increasing the odds of survival.

At a certain point, with deaths already plummeting, you have to wonder whether all the current extreme measures are really necessary. If they can scale up this and the other treatments, it might be time to recognize that the lockdowns are going to end up causing more death and misery than Covid.

 

If it is  specific yes indeed. What needs  to be established  is that it does also interrupt  other  normal cellular interchange functions short  term or  long.

 

[geriatrickid]

The information, while available to the public was known and shared as early as last April. It was formally under review in May, 

The amusing  aspect, well at least it is amusing for me, is that the OP who is crowing about this, doesn't realize he was just recently criticizing the fundamental intellectual asset that allowed the possible treatment to be identified.   I mention the   timeline because it ties back to a key element of the Moderna potential vaccine. Forgive me if I gloat, but here's why;

 

- On another thread, the OP was accusing Dr. Fauci of owning  "patents" related to a Covid19 vaccine and of standing to  profit from the vaccine. Neither allegation was true, but is a core part of the campaign of deceit that anti vaccination proponents  disseminate.

 

- Some may recall that  the US government  researchers had a key role in identifying and isolating the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein  that Moderna is using as part of its vaccine. It is pertinent because the researchers here used a SARS-CoV2 spike protein  to trap the antibody. This spike protein will also be used in the University of Pittsburgh vaccine candidate. The peer reviewed research was released in April. 

 

- Aside from giving me a chortle at the thought of anti vaccination cultists having conniptions over the shared knowledge, it does underline the role that the US NIH and associated specialty research organizations have in the development of vaccines and treatments that benefit the world.

 

It may be additionally upsetting to the anti vaccination cultists because even though the U of Pitt is taking credit, this research was a shared effort with the University of Saskatchewan. U of Sask is the university where the agricultural department developed some of the corona virus vaccines that much of the world's  farming community now depends upon. Also a substantial amount of the funding came from various Government of Canada agencies and funds for vaccine R&D, so perhaps this means that Dr. Fauci has cast a magical spell over the scientists in Canada. 

 

On a more serious note, the time period coincides with the increased cyber attacks on  researchers at the involved universities. The University of Saskatchewan was particularly targeted.  The multiple cyber attackers were believed to have been Russian and Chinese in origin.  

 

The results demonstrate the international co-operation that is allowing progress. There are longstanding ties to centers of excellence in the UK, EU, Canada and elsewhere and friendships made over the years.  The ability to  work relatively well together (human  emotions aside) is a reason why  the western free world is where it is and why  we will be able to have confidence in the  products that are being developed, unlike those of the secrecy cloaked Chinese and Russian products. 

[scorecard]

2 hours ago, geriatrickid said:

The information, while available to the public was known and shared as early as last April. It was formally under review in May, 

The amusing  aspect, well at least it is amusing for me, is that the OP who is crowing about this, doesn't realize he was just recently criticizing the fundamental intellectual asset that allowed the possible treatment to be identified.   I mention the   timeline because it ties back to a key element of the Moderna potential vaccine. Forgive me if I gloat, but here's why;

 

- On another thread, the OP was accusing Dr. Fauci of owning  "patents" related to a Covid19 vaccine and of standing to  profit from the vaccine. Neither allegation was true, but is a core part of the campaign of deceit that anti vaccination proponents  disseminate.

 

- Some may recall that  the US government  researchers had a key role in identifying and isolating the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein  that Moderna is using as part of its vaccine. It is pertinent because the researchers here used a SARS-CoV2 spike protein  to trap the antibody. This spike protein will also be used in the University of Pittsburgh vaccine candidate. The peer reviewed research was released in April. 

 

- Aside from giving me a chortle at the thought of anti vaccination cultists having conniptions over the shared knowledge, it does underline the role that the US NIH and associated specialty research organizations have in the development of vaccines and treatments that benefit the world.

 

It may be additionally upsetting to the anti vaccination cultists because even though the U of Pitt is taking credit, this research was a shared effort with the University of Saskatchewan. U of Sask is the university where the agricultural department developed some of the corona virus vaccines that much of the world's  farming community now depends upon. Also a substantial amount of the funding came from various Government of Canada agencies and funds for vaccine R&D, so perhaps this means that Dr. Fauci has cast a magical spell over the scientists in Canada. 

 

On a more serious note, the time period coincides with the increased cyber attacks on  researchers at the involved universities. The University of Saskatchewan was particularly targeted.  The multiple cyber attackers were believed to have been Russian and Chinese in origin.  

 

The results demonstrate the international co-operation that is allowing progress. There are longstanding ties to centers of excellence in the UK, EU, Canada and elsewhere and friendships made over the years.  The ability to  work relatively well together (human  emotions aside) is a reason why  the western free world is where it is and why  we will be able to have confidence in the  products that are being developed, unlike those of the secrecy cloaked Chinese and Russian products. 

Thank you G'kid.

 

I wonder if you would please share your thoughts about the future of inter. travel (perhaps also domestic travel), e.g. folks who have had the vaccination carrying some proof. Or perhaps that should be an easily accessible record in an always up to date very secure international database?

 

Or do you have some different thoughts on this?

 

Please share.

[geriatrickid]

10 hours ago, scorecard said:

Thank you G'kid.

 

I wonder if you would please share your thoughts about the future of inter. travel (perhaps also domestic travel), e.g. folks who have had the vaccination carrying some proof. Or perhaps that should be an easily accessible record in an always up to date very secure international database?

 

Or do you have some different thoughts on this?

 

Please share.

We are still  some time away from mass vaccination.

If there is a viable vaccine, much will depend on what the protection period is for the vaccine. The protection period will determine travel guidelines & rules.  If only good for a few months or a year, we may still see travel restriction. If it can be shown to be effective for several years, it will make life easier. I know that we will have a\some adverse reactions, which will delay  any roll out.

 

We already know that the roll out will target health care workers and high risk patient groups, By the time it is available to the general traveling public, it  could be  the end of 2021.  I expect that what we would see are requirements that parallel the need to have yellow fever vaccination proof. We also know that some countries are subject to polio vaccination evidence requirements.

At the very least, I can see some countries subject to tougher travel restrictions. For example, Afghanis and Pakistanis cannot enter some  middle eastern countries without evidence of  being vaccinated against polio.

 

I do have 2 concerns;

1. The potential treatment identified on this thread if it works would be a game changer. The concern is that we once had drugs that worked against many diseases and then they were handed out like candy and it facilitated the  adaptation of the contagions, such that they became resistant. I could see a country  like Thailand giving the drug out like they do with antibiotics now. Have a sniffle? Demand a cure? Here's a pill.  

 

2. Thailand appears to be relying on the Chinese vaccine(s). I would be very hesitant to enter into a country which was using the  Chinese products as we have no indication how they were created, or tested or even if they are effective. China is not a country given to transparency. I would also be concerned about counterfeit vaccines (and treatments). We see it now in Africa, and it kills.