A team of scientists led by Paul Dent, Ph.D., at Virginia Commonwealth University Massey Cancer Center has discovered that an experimental cancer drug called AR-12 inhibits the SARS-CoV-2 virus, the cause of the COVID-19 pandemic, from infecting cells and replicating. Their findings were published online today in the journal Biochemical Pharmacology, and steps are now being taken to develop a clinical trial testing the novel oral treatment at VCU Health.

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AR-12 has been studied extensively in Dent's laboratory as both an anti-cancer and anti-viral drug, with prior peer-reviewed publications from Dent and others showing it to be effective against viruses including Zika, mumps, measles, rubella, chikungunya, RSV, CMV, drug resistant HIV and influenza. Recently, collaboration with Jonathan O. Rayner, Ph.D., at the University of South Alabama and Laurence Booth, Ph.D., from Dent's lab, has demonstrated that AR-12 is highly effective against SARS-CoV-2.

"AR-12 works in a unique way. Unlike any other anti-viral drug, it inhibits cellular chaperones, which are proteins that are required to maintain the right 3-D shape of viral proteins. The shape of the virus is critical to its ability to infect and replicate," said Dent, who is a professor in the VCU Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology and the Universal Corporation Chair in Cancer Cell Signaling and a member of the Cancer Cell Signaling research program at Massey.