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 Miniature lungs, colons help test COVID-19 treatments
Tiny organ-like structures grown in the laboratory to behave like
human lungs and colons can be used to rapidly screen drugs and
identify those with potential as COVID-19 treatments, researchers
reported on Wednesday in Nature.
Compared with traditional pre-clinical approaches, in which
drugs are tested in cells from monkeys or from human cancer
patients, these so-called organoids more faithfully mimic the
complex cell types and structure of human tissues, according to Dr.
Shuibing Chen and Dr. Robert Schwartz of Weill Cornell Medicine in
New York. Their team developed organoids containing types of lung
and colon cells that are known to become infected in people with
COVID-19.
In collaboration with teams at Columbia University and Icahn School
of Medicine at Mount Sinai, they screened 1,200 FDA-approved drugs
and found three that showed activity against the novel coronavirus,
including the cancer drug imatinib, sold as Gleevec by Novartis. It
is currently being tested in four different COVID-19 clinical
trials. (https://go.nature.com/34CLDtS)
GI symptoms linked with more severe COVID-19
Gastrointestinal (GI) symptoms are associated with more severe
COVID-19 and worse outcomes, two research teams reported on Monday,
a reversal of earlier data that suggested the opposite was true. One
team reviewed 38 earlier studies of a total of more than 8,400
patients and found those with diarrhea were 63% more likely to
develop severe COVID-19. Dr. Subash Ghimire of Guthrie Robert Packer
Hospital in Pennsylvania suggested that patients with diarrhea may
have higher viral loads, which can potentially lead the body to
fight back with more severe responses.
The other team studied 921 patients and found that the roughly
22% with at least one GI symptom had higher rates of hospital and
intensive-care unit admissions and greater need for mechanical
breathing assistance. The more GI symptoms patients had, the more
their risk for these outcomes increased, Dr. Darbaz Adnan of Rush
University Medical Center in Chicago reported.
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He said doctors evaluating COVID-19 patients need to bear in mind that GI
symptoms may signal a markedly higher risk of a worsened disease course. Both
studies were presented at the American College of Gastroenterology virtual
annual meeting. (https://bit.ly/37OgZQh)
UK population with COVID-19 antibodies is shrinking
A new wave of coronavirus infections has been spreading in the UK, but the
proportion of the population there with antibodies to the virus has been
shrinking, potentially leaving more people vulnerable, new data show. In a
report posted on Tuesday on medRxiv ahead of peer review, scientists at Imperial
College London say that while 6% of the population had COVID-19 antibodies
around the end of June, that rate fell to just 4.4% in September.
Antibodies are not the body's only line of defense. Also important are immune
cells called T cells and B cells that stimulate antibody production. "On the
balance of evidence I would say, with what we know for other coronaviruses, it
would look as if immunity declines away at the same rate as antibodies decline
away, and that this is an indication of waning immunity at the population
level," said study coauthor Wendy Barclay in a news briefing.
World Health Organization spokesman Tarik Jasarevic said uncertainty over how
long immunity would last and the fact most people had never had antibodies
against this coronavirus shows the need to break transmission chains. "Acquiring
this collective immunity just by letting virus run through the population is not
really an option," he told a U.N. briefing in Geneva. (https://bit.ly/35CG3XY;
https://reut.rs/35K1ndV)
Open https://tmsnrt.rs/3a5EyDh in an external browser for a Reuters graphic on
vaccines and treatments in development.
(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks and Alistair Smout; Editing by Bill
Berkrot)
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