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SaltZookeepergame691 t1_j8colfg wrote

Reply to comment by CocktailChemist in Extracts from two common wildflowers, tall goldenrod and eagle fern blocked SARS_CoV_2, the virus responsible for COVID-19, from entering human cells. The findings could provide a new avenue to develop pharmaceutical treatments for COVID-19. by MistWeaver80

Aye, Figure 3 showing the efficacy vs remdesivir is basically all we need to see. Huge difference in observed 'potency', even accounting for their presentation of different units... and this against a drug that is far from optimal anyway.

>Because if you assumed that they were pure compounds 5 ug/mL is probably somewhere in the 10 uM range, which is not what you’d hope for from a potential hit.

Indeed. 99% of SciRep papers reporting successful anti-SARS-CoV-2 activity fall over completely at the first glance of the concentrations used/required.

Guarantee no one is gonna want to/be physiologically able to consume enough of these extracts to achieve 10 uM lung tissue concentrations, even if these extracts are absorbable, survive the GI tract, accumulate in lung, and don't kill or maim you first.

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CocktailChemist t1_j8ei0qg wrote

I’ll give them some wiggle room since it’s entirely possible that some minor but extremely active constituent is giving all the response (this has happened to me where I remade a compound that turned out to be inactive compared to previous preparations because it was too pure and didn’t have the active impurities of what had been made before), but it is useful to have that perspective about the potential limitations of what they’re seeing. Such are the challenges of natural product chemistry.

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