signal boost: SARS as painkiller?

[redbird]

From siderea: https://siderea.dreamwidth.org/1662993.html

The COVID-19 virus may be a painkiller, and that might be part of why it spreads effectively: https://medicalxpress.com/news/2020-10-pain-relief-sars-cov-infection-covid-.html

In his lab, [the author of this study] will be examining neuropilin as a new target for non-opioid pain relief. During the study, Dr. Khanna tested existing small molecule neuropilin inhibitors developed to suppress tumor growth in certain cancers and found they provided the same pain relief as the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein when binding to neuropilin.

"We are moving forward with designing small molecules against neuropilin, particularly natural compounds, that could be important for pain relief," Dr. Khanna said. "We have a pandemic, and we have an opioid epidemic. They're colliding. Our findings have massive implications for both. SARS-CoV-2 is teaching us about viral spread, but COVID-19 has us also looking at neuropilin as a new non-opioid method to fight the opioid epidemic."

Comments

[pameladean]

Wow. That is really wild.

P.