Medical Scientists Are Testing Drugs Against the New Type Stamms

16:28, April 1, 2020

The medicine against RNA-dependent viruses has passed the first phase of clinical trials

Scientists of the Center for Pharmaceutical and Chemical Technologies of Ural Federal University together with colleagues from the Institute of Organic Synthesis named after I. Ya. Postovsky UrB RAS synthesized and tested a drug effective against new strains of RNA-dependent viruses. The preliminary name of the drug is “Triazide”. The drug has already passed preclinical trials and the first phase of a clinical study (healthy volunteers) and has shown efficacy and safety (in general, trials began in May 2016). The next step is the second stage of clinical trials - checking the drug for patients. Unlike Triazavirin, which is now used in the fight against coronavirus, Triazid has a slightly different structure and other feedstock. Most likely, they will release the drug in capsules.

“Every time a virus visits the body, it mutates and comes out a little different. Not all mutants are viable, but given the large number of transitions, the spread of viruses gives rise to new terrible strains that are resistant to existing drugs, ”explains Vladimir Rusinov, Head of the Department of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry and the Laboratory of Organic Synthesis, Ural Federal University of Physics and Technology, Corresponding Member of the Russian Academy of Sciences. “We are preparing for the fact that over time there will be strains of viruses resistant to Triazavirin, and, trying to foresee this point, we are working on several options for new drugs.”

By the way, coronaviruses also mutate, acquiring new strains. Today's epidemic is the third wave of the virus that causes pneumonia. In 2002, there was the SARS-CoV virus (SARS, the first case of which was registered in the Chinese province of Guangdong), in 2015 - MERS-CoV (Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus; Saudi Arabia) and in 2019 - SARS-CoV-2 . According to the International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses, to date, scientists have counted 41 types of RNA viruses in coronavirus.The essence of the “survival” of viruses is gene transfer. Viruses transfer their DNA or RNA from organism to organism, changing and thus adapting to new conditions. The virus itself consists of a hereditary DNA / RNA molecule and a protein coat (in the influenza virus, it is hemagglutinin and neuraminidase, and H1N1, H5N1 and others are distinguished by their structure). However, it is difficult to call him alive; it is something like an “organism at the edge of life”. Different drugs block the virus at different stages of its introduction into the cell and spread in the body.

“How the virus works: it approaches the cell, clings, introduces itself, sheds the protein coat, exposes the DNA or RNA molecule, as the next molecule is built on the matrix, and then they exit the cell like a host of new virions. Then they attack the next cell, and so the infection develops,” says Vladimir Rusinov. - In the case of coronaviruses, the virus parasitizes on the cells lining the bronchi and lungs. They break through cells, followed by a bacterial attack. This causes pneumonia, then there is a fungal infection. In general, everything is quite complicated. ”

In the fight against Covid-19, doctors use universal RNA-dependent antiviral spectrum drugs, including Triazavirin. So, Triazavirin is prescribed to patients of the 40th Yekaterinburg hospital. The effectiveness of Triazavirin against Covid-19 is being studied by virologists in China: in January, the manufacturing plant Medsintez sent the humanitarian party Triazavirin to China. Chinese experts plan to complete the tests by the end of May.

In addition, in the development of Ural scientists there are several more new drugs that are at different stages of advancement. So, at the preclinical stage, a new release form of Triazavirin is an injection solution. It is intended for patients unable to take the drug in capsules. In collaboration with colleagues from Novosibirsk, scientists made the Triazavirin aerosol (for inhalation), which is better absorbed and more effective on the lungs. At the same time, before the release of drugs to the market, time and serious financial support from the state and pharmaceutical companies are needed.

For Your Inquiry

Tthe Ural School of Medical Chemistry - UrFU and UrB RAS - is one of the oldest and most sophisticated in Russia. It was created in the late 1920s - early 1930s by academician Isaac Postovsky, who graduated from the Higher Chemical School in Munich. Postovsky worked for several years in the laboratory of Hans Fischer, the 1932 Nobel laureate. In 1926, Postovsky returned to Russia and headed the Department of Organic Chemistry at the UPI (now UrFU), and already in 1936, the first domestic antibacterial drug sulfidine was created under the leadership of Isaac Postovsky, which played a huge role during the Great Patriotic War. Today, the school is represented by such outstanding scientists as academicians Oleg Chupakhin and Valery Charushin.

Employees of the Department of Organic and Biomolecular Chemistry, the Center for Pharmaceutical and Chemical Technologies of the Ural Federal University and the Institute of Organic Synthesis of the Ural Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences together with physicians and virologists work on the development of antiviral drugs. One of the latest achievements of scientists is the drug Triazavirin.

"Since 2014, it has been approved by the Russian Ministry of Health as an anti-influenza drug, but doctors also use it as a medicine for acute respiratory viral infections and tick-borne encephalitis.