Health & Fitness
SARS Drugs Could Treat Coronavirus, WPI Research Finds
Worcester Polytechnic researcher Dmitry Korkin in February created a 3D model of COVID-19 virus, and has now released a followup paper.
WORCESTER, MA — A Worcester Polytechnic Institute professor's research into the new coronavirus has yielded some crucial information about how the virus works, including possible treatments for those sickened by it.
WPI bioinformatics researcher Dmitry Korkin began his research several months ago when he created a 3D map of the new coronavirus. In mid-February, he posted the model online, free for researchers around the world to use.
On Wednesday, Korkin and a team of WPI graduate students published a peer-reviewed paper in the journal Viruses about coronavirus. One key observation was that antiviral drugs developed to fight SARS — severe acute respiratory syndrome, a virus in the coronavirus family that first appeared in 2002 — could be repurposed to fight COVID-19.
Conversely, the team found that the vaccine developed to fight SARS likely would not be effective against COVID-19. That's because a protein the new virus uses to invade human cells is in a different spot compared to the SARS virus.
"The publication in Viruses strengthens our hopes that the work our team has developed over the past three months will add significant value to the research community in the joint effort to fight the disease," Korkin said in a WPI blog post about the research.
The research comes as coronavirus cases surge in Massachusetts and the nation, and with possible treatments still in the distance.
There are three potential coronavirus vaccines being tested in Chinese and U.S. labs right now, but none will be ready before next winter, according to the Associated Press. There is no specific drug treatment for COVID-19 at the moment, but some alternatives being tested include convalescent plasma infusions, inhaling nitric oxide, and even just rolling COVID-19 patients onto their stomachs.
Close to 27,000 people in the U.S. have died of complications due to coronavirus, including close to 1,000 in Massachusetts, according to the latest figures.
