Boston: Following months of interdisciplinary research assessing tens of thousands of lung cells infected with the novel coronavirus, scientists have created one of the most comprehensive maps to date of the molecular activities that are triggered inside these cells at the onset of the viral infection, an advance that may lead to the development of new drugs to combat COVID-19.
From their analysis, the scientists, including those from Boston University in the US, discovered close to 18 existing drugs approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) that could potentially be repurposed to combat COVID-19 soon after a person becomes infected.
They said five of these drugs could reduce the spread of the coronavirus in human lung cells by more than 90 per cent.
In the research, published in the journal Molecular Cell, the scientists simultaneously infected tens of thousands of lab-grown human lung cells with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and tracked what happens in these cells…