This combined effect is known as additivity. But researchers are also searching for combinations that create “synergy”: an effect that’s bigger than just adding the effects of two drugs together.
“Additivity means one plus one equals two, and synergy means one plus one equals four,” said Dr. Mark Denison, a virologist at Vanderbilt University Medical Center. “And those are possible.”…
Coronaviruses produce a host of proteins essential for their replication, and each could be a target of a new drug. When an infected cell makes a new piece of the virus’s RNA, for example, a viral protein called a helicase has to unwind it before it can be packaged into a new virus shell. Researchers are investigating drugs that block the coronavirus helicase, leaving the virus’s genes in a tangled mess.
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