Evaluating a potential drug therapy for COVID-19

COVID-19 Research Area(s): Vaccines & Treatments

A team led by Dr. Josef Penninger, professor in UBC’s faculty of medicine, director of the Life Sciences Institute and the Canada 150 Research Chair in Functional Genetics at UBC, is receiving $578,090 from CIHR to support Phase 2 trials of a promising antiviral therapy. The trials will involve using doses of human recombinant soluble ACE2 (hrsACE2) as a decoy for the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which enters human cells by attaching to the ACE2 receptor protein. This treatment could also protect organs including lung, heart, blood vessels and kidney from injury due to high doses of antiviral therapies such as remdesivir and chloroquine.