The computer suggests 10-plus potential treatments, many of which are already FDA approved.
Jacobson's group published their results in a paper in the journal eLife in early July. The researchers also suggest vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN.
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The Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples to better understand Covid-19. Summit analyzed 2.5 billion genetic combinations for more than a week. The computer provided a model that explains many aspects of Covid-19, including some of its most bizarre symptoms.
Findings show a Covid-19 infection begins when the virus enters the body through abundant ACE2 receptors in the nose. The virus then proceeds through the body, entering cells in other places where ACE2 is also present: the intestines, kidneys, and heart. This likely accounts for the disease's cardiac and GI symptoms. But once Covid-19 has established itself in the body it actively hijacks the body's own systems, tricking it into upregulating ACE2 receptors in places where they're usually expressed at low or medium levels, including the lungs. The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) controls many aspects of the circulatory system, including the body's levels of a chemical called bradykinin, which helps to regulate blood pressure. The virus tweaks the RAS and causes the body's mechanisms for regulating bradykinin to go haywire. Bradykinin receptors are resensitized, and the body stops effectively breaking down bradykinin. The result is to release a bradykinin storm -- a massive runaway buildup of bradykinin in the body. It's this storm that is ultimately responsible for many of Covid-19's deadly effects.
Several drugs target aspects of the RAS and are already FDA approved, including danazol, stanozolol, and ecallantide, which reduce bradykinin production and could potentially stop a deadly bradykinin storm. Other compounds could treat symptoms associated with bradykinin storms, such as Hymecromone and timbetasin.
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