COVID-19.Dr. Josef Penninger, a UBC life sciences institute director, co-discovered an enzyme called ACE2 while working as a researcher in Toronto in the late ’90s.A few years later, during the SARS epidemic, Penninger discovered that ACE2 was the virus’ gateway into healthy cells, where they both replicated and destroyed tissue.
In the case of SARS, it was lung tissue in particular.He then developed a drug that blocked the enzyme and stopped the virus from entering healthy tissue.Soon after, the number of SARS cases began to drop around the world — along with funding for clinical trials.