Compound in licorice extract has potential to treat coronavirus, Chinese study finds
- Liquiritin found to significantly inhibit rapid replication of the new virus in monkey cells, according to researchers
- They used artificial intelligence for initial study of the compound, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine
Chinese licorice, a flowering plant that is native to Asia, contains a compound called liquiritin, which the team said was found to prevent rapid replication of the new virus strain in monkey cells.
The study, which has not been peer-reviewed, used artificial intelligence technology to speed up the research process.
“We recommend liquiritin as a competitive candidate for treating Covid-19,” the team of medical experts from Peking University and the Academy of Military Science wrote in a preprint paper on the bioRxiv website, referring to the disease caused by the virus.
Scientists worldwide are racing to develop treatments and a vaccine for the disease that was first reported in central China late last year and has spread across the globe, infecting more than 3.6 million people and killing over 253,000.
Patients are most commonly treated with antiviral drugs, but none has yet been proven effective against the coronavirus. Drugs that can calm the immune system and antibodies that can attack the virus are also being used.
