Prostate cancer treatment could be used to fight worst COVID symptoms

Professor Nelson said they realised the drugs could prevent the massive damaging inflammation seen in many of the fatal COVID-19 cases.

“We were very excited to pivot when calls for helping to address COVID came about, because we could see these drugs would have a very strong impact on ARDS, which comes about through the same pathways we’ve been targeting,” she said.

Dr Philp said the drugs targeted hormones secreted from fats in the body which were known to be involved in inflammation.

“One of the hormones is inflammatory and one is anti-inflammatory, and so we’ll be using the drugs to modify inflammation, which is the underlying issue in ARDS,” she said.

“Basically, the body’s…