New drug has potential to turn COVID-19 virus against itself Scripps Research team showed that a variation of an already FDA-approved therapeutic for neurological disease can block COVID-19 infection in animals.
September 29, 2022
LA JOLLA, CA A new drug designed by scientists at Scripps Research can turn the COVID-19 virus into a harbinger of its own doom.
The drug, NMT5, described in Nature Chemical Biology on September 29, 2022, coats SARS-CoV-2 with chemicals that can temporarily alter the human ACE2 receptor the molecule the virus normally latches onto to infect cells. That means that when the virus is near, its path into human cells via the ACE2 receptor is blocked; in the absence of the virus, however, ACE2 can function as usual.
What's so neat about this drug is that we're actually turning the virus against itself, says senior author Stuart Lipton, MD, PhD, the Step Family Endowed Chair and Scripps Research professor. We're arming it with little molecular warheads that end up preventing it from infecting our cells; it's our revenge on the virus.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic, Lipton and his colleagues had long been studying variations of the drug memantine, which Lipton developed and patented in the 1990s for treating neurological diseases like Alzheimer's. While memantine originated from an anti-influenza drug used in the 1960s, clinicians began investigating it for additional diseases after they noticed a woman with Parkinson's symptoms improved when she took the drug for the flu.
My team had made these antiviral drugs better for the brain, and when COVID-19 emerged, we wondered whether we had also, in the process, made any of them better antivirals, says Lipton.
Lipton and his team tested a library of compounds similar to memantine in overall structure but covered with additional pharmacological warheads. They pinpointed the drug candidate designated NMT5 as having two key properties: It could recognize and attach to a pore on the surface of SARS-CoV-2, and it could chemically modify human ACE2 using a fragment of nitroglycerin as the warhead. The group realized this could turn the virus into a delivery vehicle for its own demise.
In the new paper, Lipton's group characterized and tested NMT5 in isolated cells as well as animals. They showed how NMT5 attaches tightly to SARS-CoV-2 viral particles as the viruses move through the body. Then, they revealed the details of how the drug adds a chemical (similar to nitroglycerin) to certain molecules if it gets close enough. When the virus gets near ACE2 to infect a cell, that translates into NMT5 adding a nitro group to the receptor. When ACE2 is modified in this way, its structure temporarily shifts for about 12 hours so that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can no longer bind to it to cause infection.
What's really beautiful is that this only knocks down availability of ACE2 locally when the virus is coming at it, says Lipton. It doesn't knock down all the function of ACE2 elsewhere in the body, allowing for normal function of this protein.
In cell culture experiments testing how well the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 can attach to human ACE2 receptors, the drug prevented 95% of viral binding. In hamsters with COVID-19, NMT5 decreased virus levels by 100-fold, eliminated blood vessel damage in the animals' lungs, and ameliorated inflammation. The drug also showed effectiveness against nearly a dozen other variants of COVID-19, including alpha, beta, gamma and delta strains.
Most anti-viral drugs work by directly blocking part of a virus which can pressure the virus to evolve resistance to the drug. Since NMT5 is only using the virus as a carrier, the researchers think the drug is likely to be effective against many other variants of SARS-CoV-2.
We expect this compound would continue to be effective even as new variants emerge, because it doesn't rely on attacking parts of the virus that commonly mutate, says Chang-ki Oh, a senior staff scientist and first author of the new paper.
Though they have only studied the compound in animal models, the team is now making a version of the drug to evaluate for human use, while carrying out additional safety and effectiveness trials in animals. This work is being sponsored by the Scripps Center Grant for Antiviral Medicines & Pandemic Preparedness (CAMPP AViDD) from the National Institutes of Health (U19 AI171443).
These exciting findings suggest a new avenue for drug development that requires drug combinations for effective pandemic preparedness, says co-author Arnab Chatterjee, PhD.
In addition to Lipton, Oh and Chatterjee, authors of the new paper are Tomohiro Nakamura, Nathan Beutler, Xu Zhang, Juan Pi a-Crespo, Maria Talantova, Swagata Ghatak, Dorit Trudler, Lauren N. Carnevale, Scott R. McKercher, Malina A. Bakowski, Jolene K. Diedrich, Amanda J. Roberts, Ashley K. Woods, Victor Chi, Anil K. Gupta, Namir Shaabani, Hejun Liu, Ian A. Wilson, Dennis R. Burton, John R. Yates III and Thomas F. Rogers of Scripps Research; Mia A. Rosenfeld, Fiona L. Kearns, Lorenzo Casalino and Rommie E. Amaro of UCSD; and Cyrus Becker of EuMentis Therapeutics, Inc.
This work was supported in part by grants from the National Institutes of Health (RF1 AG057409, R01 AG056259, R01 DA048882, R35 AG071734 and DP1 DA041722, R01 AG061845, R61 NS122098, RF1 NS123298, UM1 AI144462, P41 GM103533, HOPE T32 Training Grant T32AI007384), the California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (DISC2 COVID19-11811), COVID-19 awards from Fast Grants, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (OPP1107194, INV-004923).
Lipton is an inventor of patents for the use of memantine and related compounds for neurodegenerative and neurodevelopmental disorders. He is also an inventor of composition of matter patents and use patents for aminoadamantane nitrate compounds like NMT
Most recent headlines
09/11/2025
Dalet today announced a transformative leap forward for media operations: Agentic Artificial Intelligence (AI) that unifies the Dalet ecosystem under one natura...
29/10/2025
ESPN said it will produce animated telecasts for NFL, NHL, NBA and WNBA games across The Walt Disney Co. and ESPN platforms during the 2025-26 season under an a...
29/10/2025
WASHINGTON Despite the government shutdown, the Federal Communications Commission has passed, with some revisions, a previously announced Notice of Proposed Rul...
29/10/2025
29 10 2025 - Media release SBS, NITV and Screen Australia announce 2025 Digital Originals Shortlist
The 2025 Digital Originals shortlisted teams. Photo credit...
28/10/2025
ESPN Announces Monsters Funday Football', Its Latest Real-Time Animated Bro...
28/10/2025
SVG All-Stars: Catherine Chalfant, Manager, Remote Operations, ESPNThe Ole Miss alum is an operational force behind ESPN's extensive college-football catalo...
28/10/2025
Elevating the experience: AI and data take Ryder Cup to the next level By Joe OHalloran
Tuesday, October 28, 2025 - 10:25
Print This Story
NBC produced th...
28/10/2025
Conquering the Air (waves): Taking a close up look at the IBC Accelerator Priva...
28/10/2025
World Series 2025: Spectrum SportsNet LA Brings Dodgers Fans Closer to the Actio...
28/10/2025
Dylan Southern and Benedict Cumberbatch at the premiere of The Thing with Feathers (photo by George Pimentel / Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)...
28/10/2025
For three weeks in Lagos, Spotify's Greasy Tunes Caf pop-up brought the cit...
28/10/2025
Once a niche subculture, German rap has evolved into an influential cultural movement. Now, Spotify is giving the genre a new home with OFFCULT, a playlist dedi...
28/10/2025
Shane Delia's Malta serves up the Mediterranean this summer
28 October, 2025
Media releases
Feast on 9,000 years of culinary history Mondays from 24 No...
28/10/2025
SBS's global sporting festival continues with the FIVB Beach Volleyball Worl...
28/10/2025
Bilbao, October 28, 2025 - AgileTV, a leading technology solutions company for t...
28/10/2025
Disney, NBCUniversal, FOX, Paramount Each Achieve Double-Digit Monthly Growth
...
28/10/2025
CINCINNATI The E.W. Scripps Company has announced an agreement to sell WRTV, its local ABC-affiliated station in Indianapolis, to Circle City Broadcasting for $...
28/10/2025
Berklee College of Music and Berklee Valencia Named to Billboards 2025 Top Music...
28/10/2025
NEW YORK As AI usage continues to spike, a new study from IAB delves into an important aspect of how AI is transforming the advertising business with new data s...
28/10/2025
Charlie Jablonski, a broadcast tech pioneer who helped shape the modern era of Olympics television coverage, died Oct. 25 at his home in Lake George N.Y., the N...
28/10/2025
VIENNA, Austria Bitmovin has launched Bitmovin Observability, a new stand-alone video data solution that delivers real-time insights into video playback. The so...
28/10/2025
LOS ANGELES LucidLink, the file streaming platform, has announced a Frame.io integration and expanded mobile capabilities at Adobe Max....
28/10/2025
Mediagenix, a global leader in smart content solutions to profitably connect the right content to the right audience, today announced that it has joined the Ama...
28/10/2025
Lightware, an industry leader in connectivity and signal management solutions, has announced a major update to its Taurus
platform, which now delivers flawless...
28/10/2025
Following a successful mid-September International Broadcasting Convention in Amsterdam, Hiltron Communications will promote its full range of satellite communi...
28/10/2025
Open Broadcast Systems has chosen MC&S (Media Consulting & Services) as a reseller to help strengthen its presence in France.
With over twenty years of experi...
28/10/2025
Bitmovin, leading provider of video streaming solutions, has launched Bitmovin Observability, a new stand-alone video data solution that delivers real-time insi...
28/10/2025
Ease Live, the leader in interactive TV technology, today announced the successful launch of interactive graphical overlays for UEFA Champions League matches fo...
28/10/2025
LucidLink, the file streaming platform, today at Adobe MAX announced a Frame.io integration and expanded mobile capabilities, streamlining collaboration and hel...
28/10/2025
ATLANTA Gray Media has promoted Nick Hasenecz to general manager of WNDU, its NBC affiliate in the South Bend-Elkhart, Ind., market....
28/10/2025
Applications Open for Berklee Fenway Neighborhood Improvement Grant Boston nonprofits can apply by December 12 for funding to support community projects that ...
28/10/2025
Governments everywhere are racing to harness the power of AI - but legacy infras...
28/10/2025
AI is moving from the digital world into the physical one. Across factory floors...
28/10/2025
NVIDIA is delivering the telecom industry a major boost in open-source software for building AI-native 5G and 6G networks.
NVIDIA Aerial software will soon be ...
28/10/2025
The race to bottle a star now runs on AI.
NVIDIA, General Atomics and a team of international partners have built a high-fidelity, AI-enabled digital twin for ...
28/10/2025
Along the Pacific Ocean in Monterey, California, the Naval Postgraduate School (...
28/10/2025
To democratize access to AI technology nationwide, AI education and deployment c...
28/10/2025
Leading technology companies in aerospace and automotive are accelerating their ...
28/10/2025
28 Oct 2025
VEON's JazzCash Wins Silver Award for Innovation in Lending at ...
28/10/2025
Guests include Wayne Rooney, Maya Jama, Dame Laura Kenny, Chloe Kelly, Chris McC...
28/10/2025
The two-hour special, recorded live from the iconic Dolby Theatre in LA, will ai...
28/10/2025
Eutelsat upgrades teleports with Rohde & Schwarz satellite uplink amplifiers High efficiency and resilient Ku-band amplifiers for excellent RF performance
...
28/10/2025
These appointments come at a pivotal time for ABC, as the organisation continues to evolve to meet the changing needs of a digital-first media ecosystem. The ne...
28/10/2025
Scripps Research awarded $4 million to advance platform for neurodevelopmental disorders The California Institute for Regenerative Medicine (CIRM) grant support...
27/10/2025
You can touch this: Haptics becoming central to the virtual live experience By Adrian Pennington
Friday, October 24, 2025 - 09:12
Print This Story
The vid...
27/10/2025
A tale of two trailers: France's Stop & Go doubles up with its new hybrid tr...
27/10/2025
Pro Padel League Stages City's Cup Finals Inside NYC's Hammerstein Ballr...
27/10/2025
World Series 2025: Sportsnet Delivers Made-in-Canada' Moment for a Nation U...
27/10/2025
ESPN Extends Partnership With Sony's Beyond Sports To Expand Animated Altern...
New drug has potential to turn COVID-19 virus against itself Scripps Research team showed that a variation of an already FDA-approved therapeutic for neurological disease can block COVID-19 infection in animals.
