MONTREAL – By studying the differences between hospitalized patients in intensive care who have died of COVID-19 or have recovered, Montreal researchers have been able to identify three candidate drugs to treat serious cases of the disease.
A team from the McGill University Health Center Research Institute, the Canadian Center for Computational Genomics, and the McGill Genome Center studied the host’s biological responses in hospitalized patients with a severe form of COVID-19 , looking for differences between patients who recovered and those who recovered. he succumbed to the disease.
The researchers found that certain cell pathways were overactivated on admission to intensive care patients who would later die. These pathways are related to messenger RNA metabolism, RNA splicing, and interferon signaling.
The researchers then identified three candidates for promising drugs (tacrolimus, zotatifin and nintedanib) that act in targeted pathways. They now hope that we can organize clinical trials to see if these molecules are really able to reduce the mortality of patients who are seriously ill with COVID-19.
The researchers draw conclusions from the study of seven hospitalized patients in intensive care at McGill University Health Center between March and April 2020. These patients, three of whom died, had the same level of severity as disease on the ordinal scale. of the WHO at the time of its admission.
The results of this study were published in the journal Science Advances.
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