Los Angeles Times: COVID-19 clinical trial

Publication mentions UC's efforts to study a drug used in organ transplantation to treat the virus

In a race to find medicines that can tame the coronavirus and treat patients with COVID-19, researchers are scouring the formulary of available drugs and chemical compounds in hopes of finding something they could put to work immediately.

As a result, dozens of existing medicines have been waved through to clinical trials in record time.

Among those medicines is an immune-suppressing drug, called sirolimus, which is being studied in a novel clinical trial at UC. Sirolimus is used to reduce rejection episodes in organ transplant patients and to treat lymphangioleiomyomatosis, or LAM, a rare lung disease. UC researchers were pioneers in discovering this rare lung disease as well as finding an effective treatment for it. 

Dr. Nishant Gupta is leading the sirolimus trial at UC, and he received a pilot grant to help execute it.

Read the LA Times article.

Read more about clinical trials being conducted at UC. 

Featured photo/Colleen Kelley/UC Creative + Brand

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