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Hypothesis

The AI-Discovered Aetiology of COVID-19 and Rationale of the Irinotecan+Etoposide Combination Therapy for Critically Ill COVID-19 Patients

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A peer-reviewed article of this preprint also exists.

Bragi Lovetrue^*

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Preprints on COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2

Submitted:

20 March 2020

Posted:

23 March 2020

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Abstract

We present the AI-discovered aetiology of COVID-19, based on a precise disease model of COVID-19 built under five weeks that best matches the epidemiological characteristics, transmission dynamics, clinical features, and biological properties of COVID-19 and consistently explains the rapidly expanding COVID-19 literature. We present that SARS-CoV-2 implements a unique unbiased survival strategy of balancing viral replication with viral spread by increasing its dependence on (i) ACE2-expressing cells for viral entry and spread, (ii) PI3K signaling in ACE2-expressing cells for viral replication and egress, and (iii) viral-non-structural-and-accessory-protein-dependent immunomodulation to balance viral spread and viral replication. We further propose the combination of irinotecan (an in-market topoisomerase I inhibitor) and etoposide (an in-market topoisomerase IIinhibitor) could potentially be an exceptionally effective treatment to protect critically ill patients from death caused by COVID-19-specific cytokine storms triggered by sepsis, ARDS, and other fatal comorbidities.

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Subject: Biology and Life Sciences - Virology

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