Researchers at Laurier trialing antiviral drug found to be effective at blocking two strains of coronavirus

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A team of researchers at Wilfrid Laurier University has been developing an antiviral drug aimed at boosting the bodyโ€™s innate immune response against respiratory infections such as COVID-19.ย 

This drug, code-named AntiV™ during its development, has been shown to boost the bodyโ€™s natural immune response to viruses such as COVID-19, preventing infection and replication in healthy lung cells for up to two weeks.

The Laurier team, which includes Stephanie DeWitte-Orr, an associate professor of health sciences and biology, postdoctoral fellows Tamiru Alkie and Shawna Semple and Kristof Jenik, a PhD candidate, has been working on this project since May 2020. 

In lab conditions, the drug is put onto a nanoparticle, provided by Glysantis Inc., a biotechnology startup in Guelph, which has allowed for a significantly improved deployment of the drug.

โ€œWhat that does is it puts a lot of stimulant in a very small space, and then we give that to the lung cells, and itโ€™s a really robust inducer of the innate immune response,โ€ DeWitte-Orr said.

Antiviral drugs such as AntiV differ from vaccines in the way that they affect how the body responds to pathogens such as COVID-19. Antivirals affect the innate immune response, and vaccines affect the adaptive immune response. 

โ€œThe immune system is broken up into two parts: thereโ€™s the innate and then thereโ€™s the adaptive immune response,โ€ DeWitte-Orr said.

โ€œA vaccine is a piece of the virus, or killed virus โ€ฆ thatโ€™s introduced into the body, [which] activates the adaptive immune response to remember the virus. Then, when youโ€™re actually infected with the virus, your adaptive immune response remembers that and kills the virus quickly. Thatโ€™s a memory response.โ€ 

โ€œA drug does not activate memory. A drug is either something that you give before or during an infection to stop [that] infection. So drugs are helpful in instances where there is no vaccine, or where the vaccine is not useful in a certain population, or when a vaccine no longer works within a certain population,โ€ she said.

There are a significant number of applications for this drug, especially in vulnerable populations such as children, the elderly, or immune-compromised individuals. 

An antiviral drug that broadly targets the bodyโ€™s innate immune response means that, unlike other drugs which target specific viruses, or parts of them, this drug will encourage the bodyโ€™s immune system to do what it does naturally, according to DeWitte-Orr.  

โ€œThe [other] nice thing about using an innate immune stimulant is that itโ€™s not specific to any virus strain. Because the innate immune response is a general response, it triggers really quickly, and it blocks any virus.โ€

What this means is that AntiV could potentially be used as a supplementary, preventative treatment for a broad range of coronaviral or other respiratory infections.

Now, the Laurier research team will work with scientists from Winnipeg to develop the next stage of the drugโ€™s research, exposing the drug to SARS-CoV-2, the most common current strain of the coronavirus. 

โ€œWeโ€™re also creating [three-dimensional] lung cultures, [so] weโ€™re going to be testing the drug in a more natural human lung environment in vitro. Weโ€™re also working towards trying the drug in animalsโ€”weโ€™ve done a little bit of safety testing in animals, and itโ€™s safe,โ€ DeWitte-Orr said. 

โ€œBut now, we need to figure out delivery and [look] at dosage and timing in an animal model.โ€


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