2 diseases, one drug: How a drug for deadly cancer could treat COVID-19

(Source: FIERCE Biotech)

A drug with promising preclinical results against treatment-resistant cancer might also be effective against COVID-19.

In the results of a study published Nov. 14 in Nature Communications, scientists from the University of California (USC) Keck School of Medicine and the Cleveland Clinic Florida Research and Innovation Center described how they discovered that a drug that inhibits glucose-regulated protein 78, or GRP78, suppresses SARS-CoV-2 replication in the lungs of mice. In an earlier study, the USC team showed the same drug could lower the expression of KRAS, a cancer-promoting protein, in mouse models of a deadly subtype of cancer.

“It turns out that cancer and COVID act on cells in similar ways,” Amy Lee, Ph.D., co-corresponding author and professor of biochemistry and molecular medicine at USC, told Fierce Biotech Research. (…Read More)