RE:RE:Great YouTube Interview with Dr. Josef PenningerHi Hempdoc. Thanks for posting the link to that very informative article.
In earlier work Dr. Penninger showed that the ACE2 enzyme is a protective factor in acute lung failure. The COVID-19 virus uses the ACE2 enzymes on the surface of cells as receptors to gain entry to the cells. So when the lungs are infected by COVID-19 a large number of ACE2 enzymes are taken out of commission, so they can no longer perform their protective function in the lungs and very serious lung damage results.
Dr. Penninger's strategy is to inject patients twice a day for six days with soluble ACE2 which binds with, and traps the COVID-19 virus so it does not gain entry into lung tissue, also freeing up much of the ACE2 on the cell surfaces so that they can perform their lung protecting function.
From the article:
"According to recent studies, increasing bioavailability of sACE2 by administering recombinant human sACE2 may act as a virus trap and inactivator."
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"Yet another therapeutic approach is the use of soluble ACE2 as a virus trap and inactivator. Soluble ACE2 generated by proteolytic cleavage of the membrane anchor is normally present in plasma, although at low concentration. Increasing its availability at tissue sites would shift the competition with membrane-bound ACE2 toward the soluble protein that cannot promote viral entry into the cell. It is also expected that this approach would preserve tissue ACE2."
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"Although additional studies are needed, the potentially protective action of hrsACE2 against viral infection gives new hope in the fight against COVID-19."
Hempdoc wrote: Eoganacht wrote: A randomized, double-blind, phase 2 trial of APN01 for the treatment of 200 severely infected patients with COVID-19 has begun in 10 sites in Austria, Germany and Denmark. The aim is to block the SARS-CoV-2 virus from infecting the lungs and other organs, preventing lung failure and death. The drug has already proved safe and tolerable in a phase 1 trial of 86 patients. The first phase 2 patients have already been treated and the trial is scheduled to be completed by November 2020.
Dr. Josef Penninger MD is the director of the Life Sciences Institute, UBC, and the co-founder of APEIRON Biologics which is conducting the trial.
World leading geneticist and immunologist Josef Penninger on potential COVID-19 treatment
Thanks Eoganacht...I believe this approach has incredible potential in reducing Covid morbidity.
Not sure if this has already been posted, but the following April 2020 article in Nephrology digest provides a nice summary & schematic explaining the potential of soluble ACE-2.
https://www.kidney-international.org/article/S0085-2538(20)30401-4/pdf