New story in Health from Time: A First-of-its-Kind Library of Potential Coronavirus Drugs, Built at Columbia University, Funded by China’s Richest Person

If our experience with coronaviruses in the past few decades has taught us anything, it’s that outbreaks are inevitable, no matter what we do. You don’t have to look further than the fact that COVID-19 is the third coronavirus epidemic to affect human populations in 20 years, after severe acute respiratory syndromes (SARS) in 2003 and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) in 2012. Coronaviruses make their homes in a variety of animal hosts, from bats to cats, dogs to camels, and it’s just a matter of time before another one makes the jump into people.

Another thing we know for sure is that we can’t rely on patchwork responses each time an outbreak occurs. Every time a new coronavirus emerges, researchers focus their attention on learning everything they can about the culprit, and biotech companies dip a careful toe into the investigational waters of developing a new treatment, but ultimately, when the cases subside, so does the interest and so does the research.

Dr. David Ho, CEO of the Aaron Diamond AIDS Research Center and professor of medicine at Columbia University, wants to put an end to that trend. Ho is a leader in the HIV field, having done groundbreaking research on how the virus works in the body, and pioneering the idea of combating infection early and with the strongest possible arsenal of combined anti-virals. Now, he’s turning to coronaviruses, hoping his HIV expertise will help him figure out how best to treat and contain novel coronaviruses. With a $2.1 million starting grant from Chinese technology mogul Jack Ma, Ho will oversee four research teams at Columbia whose goal is to find an effective treatment against COVID-19 and other coronaviruses.

“We put together a proposal in record time—probably no more than 72 hours,” says Ho. “We predict in the coming decade there will be more [outbreaks]. And we need to find permanent solutions. We should not repeat the mistake we made after SARS and after MERS, that once the epidemic wanes, the interest and the political will and the funding also wanes. If we had followed through with the work that had begun with SARS, we would be so much better off today.”

To ensure that the next response to a coronavirus outbreak is better than this one, Ho and his team are building a first-of-its-kind library of potential coronavirus drug candidates. Coronavirus, like HIV, is a retrovirus, meaning its primary genetic material is made up of RNA, which the virus then translates into DNA when it infects a host cell. So Ho is stacking his shelves with polymerase and protease inhibitors, and other drugs that have been developed to fight HIV and other viruses like viral hepatitis. Ho says there are about 4,700 of these drugs, if you include their analogues (drugs that are structurally similar but may be made using slightly different formulas and might have varying side effect profiles). Because viruses seem to share some basic processes to replicate, that means there’s a strong chance of finding something that might be effective against not just SARS-CoV-2 but other coronaviruses that might pop up in coming years.

Ho is also studying samples from people infected with COVID-19 to find antibodies that might be attacking the virus—applying a strategy his team has been using to find new approaches to treating HIV.

Other researchers are tracking strains of coronavirus currently living in animals like bats, so together with the library of potential drug candidates, Ho says it might be possible to better combat the next coronavirus infection. “We have a goal to have [some] lead candidates [to treat COVID-19] in one year’s time. So we really have to get going,” says Ho. “But if we had done something like this after SARS and MERS, we would be further along already.”

New story in Health from Time: COVID-19 Has Been ‘Apocalyptic’ for Public Transit. Will Congress Offer More Help?

While trying to get to work over the past few months, Brittany Williams, a Seattle home care worker, has often been passed by two or three buses before one stops to let her board. Buses in her area that once carried anywhere from about 50 to 100 passengers have been limited to between 12 and 18 to prevent overcrowding in response to coronavirus, and Williams’ commute, typically a half-hour ride, now takes more than double that time. Other Seattle transit riders have described budgeting as much as an extra hour per trip to account for the reduced capacity, eating into their time at work, school or with family. Even with the ridership limits in place, Williams, 34, doesn’t feel safe on public transit. Some passengers don’t wear face coverings, and bus drivers sometimes ignore capacity limits, she says. On one ride with her seven-year-old son, she decided to get off at a stop far from her home after a driver allowed a crowd of people to board. “It’s very trying. I’ll put...

New story in Health from Time: An At-Home Coronavirus Test May Be On the Way in the U.S.

As cases of COVID-19 continue to climb in the U.S. , there’s a new urgency to make sure there are as many tests as possible to diagnose people who have symptoms that might indicate an infection. Knowing if people are positive is important for guiding their next steps: self-isolation, avoiding contact with others, and, if their symptoms get worse, seeking medical care. To date, access to tests has been spotty at best across the country, and while more kits are now available than even a week ago , most are gene-based assays that take several days for commercial labs to process and produce results. That may change in about two months if the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) gives Emergency Use Authorization to the first blood-based COVID-19 test in the U.S. Scanwell Health, an at-home test company based in California, licensed the rights to a test developed by Chinese company Innovita, which was used extensively at the height of country’s epidemic earlier this year. “The ...

New story in Health from Time: A Montana Care Home Refused Free COVID-19 Tests. Now, Nearly Every Resident Has Coronavirus

(BILLINGS, Mont.) — It was meant to be a last line of defense to protect the most vulnerable as the coronavirus spread across the United States : Montana officials offered free testing in May for staff and residents at assisted living and long-term care facilities. But not all of them followed through, according to state data, including a facility in Billings, Montana’s largest city, that cares for people with dementia and other memory problems. The virus has infected almost every resident and killed eight, accounting for almost a quarter of Montana’s 34 confirmed deaths. Thirty-six employees also have tested positive at the facility where 59 people lived before the deaths began. Read more: ‘It’s Getting Worse.’ Nursing Home Workers Confront Risks in Facilities Devastated by Coronavirus While Montana’s rates of confirmed infections and deaths are much lower than other parts of the country, the outbreak at Canyon Creek Memory Care illustrates that even the most simple an...

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