{"id":152444,"date":"2022-12-10T21:23:26","date_gmt":"2022-12-11T03:23:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/new-receptor-decoy-drug-neutralizes-covid-19-virus-and-its-variants"},"modified":"2022-12-10T21:23:26","modified_gmt":"2022-12-11T03:23:26","slug":"new-receptor-decoy-drug-neutralizes-covid-19-virus-and-its-variants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2022\/12\/new-receptor-decoy-drug-neutralizes-covid-19-virus-and-its-variants","title":{"rendered":"New receptor \u201cdecoy\u201d drug neutralizes COVID-19 virus and its variants"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/new-receptor-decoy-drug-neutralizes-covid-19-virus-and-its-variants2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>\ud83d\ude17<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>\n<strong>BOSTON<\/strong> \u2014 Scientists at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.dana-farber.org\/\">Dana-Farber Cancer Institute<\/a> have developed a drug that potently neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 coronavirus, and is equally effective against the Omicron variant and every other tested variant. The drug is designed in such a way that natural selection to maintain infectiousness of the virus should also maintain the drug\u2019s activity against future variants.<\/p>\n<p>The investigational drug, described in a report published today in <em>Science Advances<\/em>, is not an antibody, but a related molecule known as an ACE2 receptor decoy. Unlike antibodies, the ACE2 decoy is far more difficult for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to evade because mutations in the virus that would enable it to avoid the drug would also reduce the virus\u2019s ability to infect cells. The Dana-Farber scientists found a way to make this type of drug neutralize coronaviruses more potently in animals infected with COVID-19 and to make it safe to give to patients.<\/p>\n<p>This report comes at a time when antibody drugs used to treat COVID-19 have lost their effectiveness because the viral spike protein has mutated to escape being targeted by the antibodies.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\ud83d\ude17 BOSTON \u2014 Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a drug that potently neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 coronavirus, and is equally effective against the Omicron variant and every other tested variant. The drug is designed in such a way that natural selection to maintain infectiousness of the virus should also maintain the drug\u2019s activity [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":513,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-152444","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-futurism"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/513"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=152444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/152444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=152444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=152444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=152444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}