if you saw my previous video where I
went over my top three new and exciting
medications against COVID-19 I
mentioned this drug from Cytodyn
called leronlimab now i mistakenly
referred to Cytodyn as a Canadian 
company because I got my Vancouver's
mixed up Cytodyn is located in
Vancouver Washington in the United
States so why am I talking about
leronlimab again well if you've been
following me now you'll know that I
believe that the major underlying
pathogenesis of COVID-19 is not the
virus but cytokine storms and I believe
that there are multiple pathways that
are contributing to these cytokine
storms not just the virus and I've made
a video going over some of these
theoretical pathways which I believe
involve galectins and your red blood
cells and how they are telegraphing this
message to us so there are many cytokines
being targeted right now with
interleukin 6 being the main one and
this is the reason why interleukin 6
receptor blockers like tocilizumab and
sarilumab are being investigated for
use in COVID-19 patients but in
speaking with many of my physician
colleagues around the country they are
not seeing much effectiveness with 
tocizilumab along with remdesivir in
critically ill patients however Dr.
Bruce Patterson from incellDX recently
said that cytokine storms from COVID-19
are due to a chemokine called RANTES
and this is why some people believe that
leronlimab which inhibits the receptor
that RANTES binds to might be a
potentially important drug in the fight
against COVID-19
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so this virus has personally affected me
I've had many friends and colleagues get
infected with COVID-19 some have died
and some are currently dying.  In
leronlimab HIV clinical trials
involving hundreds of patients they
observed no serious adverse events and
Cytodyn also recently announced that a
study done in Montefiore hospital on 10
patients showed some promising results
so before I continue further I have to
state I'm not affiliated with Cytodyn
I know no one in the biotech world nor
the pharmaceutical industry I'm an
anesthesiologist with a background in
public health whose friends are dying
and whose colleagues are so desperate
for an effective treatment.  Leronlimab
right now is in FDA clinical trials but
it is available through an eIND through
the FDA so in this video I'm gonna go
over the mechanism of action of 
leronlimab, talk a little bit about the
Montefiore study that Cytodyn just
announced and also tell you why I am
excited about the potential of this drug
so chemokines and chemokine receptors
play a crucial role in the trafficking
of leukocytes across the body and
they're also involved in the development
of a variety of diseases migration of
leukocytes to inflammatory areas is
controlled by chemokine gradients also
known as chemotaxis which means that
these cells move to areas of higher
concentration of chemokines CCR5 is a
chemokine receptor and is expressed by T
cells and macrophages and is known to be
an important co-receptor along with cd4
of HIV the CCR5 gene is located on
chromosome 3 at position 21 and a 32
base pair deletion in the gene is
associated with HIV infection resistance
therefore research has been focused on
the CCR5 blocking and gene editing
knockout of the receptor
treat many diseases and infections the
CCR5 receptor is a known receptor for
many inflammatory chemokines including
CCL5 also known as RANTES
stands for regulated on activation
normal t-cell expressed and secreted and
is a chemokine produced by T
lymphocytes basophils and macrophages
the RANTES chemokine is expressed by
many immune cells and plays a role in
homing and migration of T cells during
acute infections CCR5 receptor and ran
T's complex then transduces a signal by
increasing the intracellular calcium ion
levels and activating the enzymes GTPases
leronlimab is a humanized
monoclonal IGG antibody that was
originally developed for HIV and works
by blocking the CCR5 receptor and
stopping the calcium signaling so by
blocking the CCR5 receptor on leukocytes
the idea with leronlimab is you are
blocking the transmission of the
chemokine signal from RANTES thus
preventing the migration of more immune
cells to attenuate a cytokine storm it
is also believed that leronlimab's other
effect is polarization of macrophages
from pro-inflammatory to
anti-inflammatory phenotypes so as of
April 27 2020 Cytodyn submitted a
biologics license application or BLA to
the FDA for the use of leronlimab in
HIV now besides HIV leronlimab has
shown a lot of promise in inhibiting the
metastasis of cancer cells so the COVID-19
leronlimab trial involving 10
patients at Montefiore hospital in Bronx
New York City Cytodyn CEO Dr. Nader
Pourhassan found what he called
"impressive results" so in a recent
conference call and email 
to me Dr. Bruce Patterson of IncellDX
said that the biggest points about
leronlimab from the Montefiore study
were complete inhibition of interleukin
6 by day 14 and significant reduction by
day 7 restoration of cd8 and cd4 counts
to normal with normalization of cd4 and
cd8 ratios a decrease in T regulatory
cells that inhibit innate and adaptive
immunity reduction in plasma viral loads
and in over 800 patients studied in
their HIV trials there were no serious
adverse effects observed with the use of
leronlimab now a few things I
wanted to highlight about this news I
think it's huge that there were no
serious adverse events with leronlimab
in hundreds of patients from their HIV
clinical trials I also confirm this from
the NIH clinical web page one study
noted extension study found no serious
side effects related to treatment with
leronlimab or studied discontinuation's
due to a side effect in another study it
was noted no treatment related serious
side effects were reported injection
site reactions that occurred during the
study were mostly mild and self
resolving and in another study involving
226 patients most side effects were mild
in intensity and no side effect patterns
were observed
none of the serious side effects that
occurred were related to leronlimab the
majority of injection site reactions
were mild and resolved on their own in a
COVID-19 study published in the New
England Journal of Medicine
it was observed that interleukin 6
levels were very elevated where leronlimab
was initiated in the 5 patients with
elevated interleukin 6 levels these
levels decreased markedly 3 days later
so the other major point I wanted
talk about was the restoration of cd8
and cd4 counts to normal and a
normalization of the cd4 the cd8 ratio
because there been studies that have
shown that the cd4 and cd8 counts are
decreased in COVID-19 infections so in a
study from China they observed the
number of total t-cells cd4 and cd8
t-cells were dramatically reduced in
COVID-19 patients especially among
elderly patients greater than 60 years
of age and in patients requiring ICU
care and the surviving T cells appear
functionally exhausted so what I found
very interesting is although the
mechanism of action is blocking the CCR5
receptor and the RANTES chemokine that
leronlimab had a normalization of
interleukin 6 levels by day 14 and a
significant reduction by day 7 and it's
important to remember that we temper any
optimism and excitement until we see the
rest of their clinical trials and the
publication of the data but leronlimab
has no serious side effects has
normalization of interleukin 6 levels by
day 14 a normalization of cd4 the cd8
count a decrease in the plasma viral
load I mean it is hard not to get
excited and a drug that we should all be
keeping a very close eye on in the
future in the fight against COVID-19 so
if you have any questions regarding the
topic in this video which was leronlimab
send me a message down below in the
comment section or on Instagram at ECA
Wellness and if you like in this video
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