New insights into “bradykinin storms” suggest potential therapies for Covid-19(spectrum.ieee.org)
spectrum.ieee.org
New insights into “bradykinin storms” suggest potential therapies for Covid-19
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-human-os/computing/hardware/has-the-summit-supercomputer-cracked-the-covid-code
18 comments
Sometimes with enough data and powerful enough computers you can brute force ideas that otherwise might take forever to examine. If you can identify the reasons why certain symptoms appear, you can begin to format potential solutions faster. In programming terms once you understand why something is broken, it's much easier to fix.
These are two very cool findings about the genetic mechanisms which might be at work provoking specific lethal symptoms that are pretty unique to COVID.
This is such a great use of the world’s second fastest supercomputer and a fascinating discovery achieved through genetic data mining!
It might be the coolest thing you read today and even if it doesn’t immediately lead to a treatment breakthrough, it’s at least heartening to know our world’s best resources are being deployed in this fashion.
This is such a great use of the world’s second fastest supercomputer and a fascinating discovery achieved through genetic data mining!
It might be the coolest thing you read today and even if it doesn’t immediately lead to a treatment breakthrough, it’s at least heartening to know our world’s best resources are being deployed in this fashion.
Grateful for anyone that studies this but there has been so much false hope in the past six months that I came to ignore all these findings.
What kind of hope were you holding if I may ask, that it's been crushed that many times already? My government (NL) has always been very clear that a vaccine would not be expected until late 2020/early 2021 at the earliest, and that we would have to cope until then.
Also, we haven't been treating the disease yet. We have gotten better at managing/alleviating the symptoms and relying on the body's own immune system to clear the infection. If this discovery allows for a more targeted treatment of the infection itself rather than its symptoms, it's actually very good news. But even then, it's going to take months before we can validate the efficacy of such a treatment.
Also, we haven't been treating the disease yet. We have gotten better at managing/alleviating the symptoms and relying on the body's own immune system to clear the infection. If this discovery allows for a more targeted treatment of the infection itself rather than its symptoms, it's actually very good news. But even then, it's going to take months before we can validate the efficacy of such a treatment.
> What kind of hope were you holding if I may ask, that it's been crushed that many times already?
Not the OP but the expectations were that in 6 months' time we would have gotten better at treating at least "some" of the disease. No-one knowledgeable enough expected a vaccine by this autumn but some people were hoping for a greatly increased standard of covid care in August 2020 compared to February 2020.
Re: the vaccine thing, I don't think that's logistically possible to give the vaccine to billions of people in less than a year (even a 50% covid vaccination rate for our species would mean administering 3.5-4 billion vaccines), so 2022 at the earliest looks like our best bet (hoping that we'd actually have the vaccine by early 2021). Looking at past vaccination campaigns I personally think that even a 3-5 year timeframe looks optimistic, but that's just me.
Not the OP but the expectations were that in 6 months' time we would have gotten better at treating at least "some" of the disease. No-one knowledgeable enough expected a vaccine by this autumn but some people were hoping for a greatly increased standard of covid care in August 2020 compared to February 2020.
Re: the vaccine thing, I don't think that's logistically possible to give the vaccine to billions of people in less than a year (even a 50% covid vaccination rate for our species would mean administering 3.5-4 billion vaccines), so 2022 at the earliest looks like our best bet (hoping that we'd actually have the vaccine by early 2021). Looking at past vaccination campaigns I personally think that even a 3-5 year timeframe looks optimistic, but that's just me.
March or April compared to now seem to indicate we do have a greatly increased standard of care, resulting in a much higher infections per death ratio.
This isn't necessarily true - there is a implied assumption that the infections are still following the same distribution among people with different risk factors, but that isn't necessarily the case.
The original paper A mechanistic model and therapeutic interventions for COVID-19 involving a RAS-mediated bradykinin storm [1]:
> ...our results indicate that the pathology of COVID-19 is likely the result of Bradykinin Storms rather than cytokine storms (although given the induction of IL2 by BK, the two may be intricately linked).
> Several interventional points (most of them already FDA-approved pharmaceuticals) could be explored with the goal of increasing ACE, decreasing BK, or blocking BK2 receptors (Table 1).
[1] https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177
> ...our results indicate that the pathology of COVID-19 is likely the result of Bradykinin Storms rather than cytokine storms (although given the induction of IL2 by BK, the two may be intricately linked).
> Several interventional points (most of them already FDA-approved pharmaceuticals) could be explored with the goal of increasing ACE, decreasing BK, or blocking BK2 receptors (Table 1).
[1] https://elifesciences.org/articles/59177
“We have to get this message out,” Jacobson said. “We have started to be contacted by people. But … clinical partners and funding agencies who will hopefully support this work is the next step that needs to happen.”
Yes! Clinical trials are required to isolate bradykinin dysregulation as a primary cause of COVID-19 morbidity. If that happens, the good news is that drug therapies already exist, which means the death toll from the virus could be cut dramatically in a short time.
It's bizarre that the chief scientist for computational systems biology at a prestigious government research facility such as Oak Ridge National Labs doesn't already have connections to facilitate clinical trials in advance.
This is the true cost of the crony capitalism that has seen sham treatments such as hydroxychloroquine dominate clinical opportunities and administrative bandwidth of the pandemic response.
Yes! Clinical trials are required to isolate bradykinin dysregulation as a primary cause of COVID-19 morbidity. If that happens, the good news is that drug therapies already exist, which means the death toll from the virus could be cut dramatically in a short time.
It's bizarre that the chief scientist for computational systems biology at a prestigious government research facility such as Oak Ridge National Labs doesn't already have connections to facilitate clinical trials in advance.
This is the true cost of the crony capitalism that has seen sham treatments such as hydroxychloroquine dominate clinical opportunities and administrative bandwidth of the pandemic response.
With ebola was standard the use of blood transfusions from people that developped antibodies against it. This path is not being explored here, and sometimes I wonder why. We have plenty of people that recovered
It is happening, on quite a large scale too, e.g. [1]
1: https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/dlp/plasma-donati...
1: https://www.redcrossblood.org/donate-blood/dlp/plasma-donati...
Looks like a good idea, but It seems that neither Europe nor the official healthcare US system is adopting or giving a lot of credit to that.
So maybe is basically a PR and blood donor campaign from the american redcross, a charity managing several private hospitals.
I had seen several strange measures adopted with the excuse of COVID. From ozone machines to, for example, the university requiring than students for the next year tie their hair when in the faculties. I can't see any relationship between having long hair and having COVID...
So maybe is basically a PR and blood donor campaign from the american redcross, a charity managing several private hospitals.
I had seen several strange measures adopted with the excuse of COVID. From ozone machines to, for example, the university requiring than students for the next year tie their hair when in the faculties. I can't see any relationship between having long hair and having COVID...
We're well past the time when good ideas were needed. Our biggest problems at the moment are proving ideas up and logistics.
I have a fairly rosy outlook; we're starting to enter the phase of this where the scientists will have useful observations to make. One of my reasonable worst-case scenarios for the next 12 months is someone develops a $5 5 minute coronavirus test and central health agencies don't notice/delay the rollout/start throwing out arbitrary sensitivity & specificity threshold roadblocks so the pandemic continues for stupid reasons.
I have a fairly rosy outlook; we're starting to enter the phase of this where the scientists will have useful observations to make. One of my reasonable worst-case scenarios for the next 12 months is someone develops a $5 5 minute coronavirus test and central health agencies don't notice/delay the rollout/start throwing out arbitrary sensitivity & specificity threshold roadblocks so the pandemic continues for stupid reasons.
It looks like this isn't going away any time soon. Good ideas may not make a difference in the short term (though with medications already approved for other uses, maybe this one will), but they might reduce the burden of this disease in the medium-long term.
As for the testing, I would be thrilled if there were home covid-19 tests that were as fast and reliable as home pregnancy tests. Spit/pee/whatever on a stick, wait a couple of minutes, get a result. But I don't think anyone is working on something like this, and I suspect it's not as easy as it sounds.
As for the testing, I would be thrilled if there were home covid-19 tests that were as fast and reliable as home pregnancy tests. Spit/pee/whatever on a stick, wait a couple of minutes, get a result. But I don't think anyone is working on something like this, and I suspect it's not as easy as it sounds.
45 minutes is pretty good. People might be able to integrate that into their morning routine (assuming it's cheap enough and easy enough to use). Wake up. Spit. Eat. Get dressed. Check results before heading out.
Apparently it is ready to go! The specificity is much lower than usual PCR, so regs will need to change to allow it - but basically lick a piece of paper every day!
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/
https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-640/
Many of the symptoms they described match her journey. Her latest diagnosis from a cardiologist is PoTS - but it could well be the bradykinin issues causing very similar symptoms. Interestingly many people on her groups who have been as ill or iller than her, have made almost spontaneous recoveries. I hope she recovers soon.