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Boosting immunity against COVID-19 through drug repurposing (Amsterdam UMC)
Immunologist Carla Ribeiro is investigating how the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19 disease, hijacks the body’s immune defense mechanisms to enter cells and spread to other organs. By now we know that COVID-19 not only manifests in the lungs, but is a multi-organ disease affecting also the kidneys, the gastrointestinal tract, and even blood vessels. Recent studies have reported infectious SARS-CoV-2 in stool samples of COVID-19 patients long after respiratory clearance, underlining the urgency to unravel how SARS-CoV-2 infects the gut. We have found that immune cells at portals of viral entry are equipped with an immune shredder mechanism able to purge viruses such as HIV-1. Here, we will identify drugs targeting patients’ immune shredder mechanism, rather than the virus itself, to boost immune immunity in a bid to treat infected COVID-19 individuals and quicken recovery from severe cases of the disease.
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