Tokyo University of Science
COVID-19 continues to claim lives across the world and is infecting millions more. Although several vaccines have recently become available, making significant strides towards preventing COVID-19, what about the treatment of those who already have the infection? Vaccines aren’t 100% effective, highlighting the need–now more than ever–for effective antiviral therapeutics. Moreover, some people can’t receive vaccines due to health issues, and new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that can penetrate vaccine-conferred immunity, are being reported, indicating that we need to think beyond prevention.
Given this need, a team of researchers based in Japan, the US, and the UK launched a project to develop effective therapeutics. This team included several researchers based at Tokyo University of Science: Visiting Professor Koichi Watashi, Dr. Hirofumi Ohashi, Professor Shin Aoki, Professor Kouji Kuramochi, and Assistant Professor Tom
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IMAGE: Researchers screened a panel of drugs that are already approved for clinical use and identified two drugs that provided effective SARS-CoV-2 suppression: cepharanthine and nelfinavir view more
Credit: Louis Reed on Unsplash
COVID-19 continues to claim lives across the world and is infecting millions more. Although several vaccines have recently become available, making significant strides towards preventing COVID-19, what about the treatment of those who already have the infection? Vaccines aren t 100% effective, highlighting the need now more than ever for effective antiviral therapeutics. Moreover, some people can t receive vaccines due to health issues, and new variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, that can penetrate vaccine-conferred immunity, are being reported, indicating that we need to think beyond prevention.
With increasing public awareness of crises associated with degraded environments and mounting pressure to act, governments worldwide have begun to examine environmentally sustainable policies. However, there are many questions about whether enacting these policies will negatively affect economic growth. Now, a model created by researchers in Japan suggests that sustained GDP growth is possible even after spending to clean up pollution as it is created, providing hope that a zero-emission society is an achievable goal.