Researchers from Columbia Engineering, Fiocruz’s Center for Technological Development in Health and the Oswaldo Cruz Institute in Brazil, Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, and Rockefeller University recently reported that, by combining inhibitors of polymerases and exonucleases — enzymes that allow SARS-CoV-2 to reproduce — they were able to reduce SARS-CoV-2 replication 10 times more than when using just the polymerase inhibitors. They also identified a polymerase inhibitor with a unique modification that largely resists its removal from the RNA by the exonuclease. Their findings from both the molecular and cellular levels reveal the great potential of novel antiviral drug combinations to stop the spread of COVID-19 and other coronavirus diseases.
