The emergence of pandemic respiratory viruses is a major concern. Those viruses include coronaviruses such as SARS-CoV-2 and influenza A viruses (IAV). There are currently no efficient drugs against coronaviruses and the efficacy of anti-IAV drugs is disputed.
Vaccination should constitute the most preventive strategy. However, the intrinsic antigenic drift of IAV impairs vaccine protection. Besides, previous coronaviruses crises showed that poorly neutralizing antibodies developed after vaccination may enhance subsequent infection. Current vaccine hesitancy also remains a barrier to full population inoculation against SARS-CoV-2.
Our ANR project is thus aimed to develop an innovative metabolic therapy against those two viruses, delivered via the pulmonary route, based on (i) recent evidence that metabolites are key effectors of the host antimicrobial response and (ii) our preliminary data which identified two metabolites with anti-IAV and anti-SARS-CoV-2 antiviral activity.