New potential treatment for COVID-19 identified by scientists 

A new therapy using a biological substance created by re-engineered human skin cells has been identified by investigators at Cedars-Sinai, Los Angeles for COVID-19.

“We were surprised to find this potential therapy shuts down a novel pathway for viral replication and also protects infected cells,” said Ahmed G. Ibrahim, PhD, MPH, assistant professor in the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai and first author of the study.

Scientists found the substance stopped SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from reproducing itself and also protected infected cells when tested in human lung cells. 

The new potential treatment inhibits replication and protects or repairs tissue, as COVID-19 affects patients long after the viral infection has been cleared.

The potential therapy investigated in the study was created by scientists using skin cells called dermal fibroblasts. The investigators engineered the cells to produce therapeutic extracellular vesicles (EVs). 

The researchers engineered these fibroblasts which allowed them to secrete EVs - dubbed by the investigators as 'ASTEX' - with the ability to repair tissue.

The study was done through a collaboration with investigators at UCLA (University of California, Los Angeles) who tested ASTEX by applying it to human lung epithelial cells, cells that line the pulmonary tract and are the targets of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

They discovered that ASTEX prevented cells from launching an inflammatory process that could lead to cell death. Cells treated with ASTEX also made fewer of a type of protein called ACE that SARS-CoV-2 may use to infect cells.

The team compared the treatment with remdesivir, a drug currently used to treat COVID-19, and found that remdesivir did not inhibit the production of ACE. Instead, remdesivir stops the virus from latching on to a protein called ACE2. ASTEX, therefore, may present another way to prevent the virus from entering cells.

“This potential anti-COVID-19 biological therapy is novel in that it has two facets: It protects infected cells, which remdesivir does not do, and also inhibits viral replication,” said senior author Eduardo Marban, MD, PhD, executive director of the Smidt Heart Institute and the Mark S. Siegel Family Foundation Distinguished Professor at Cedars-Sinai. 

(With agency inputs)