A new trial led by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania will test whether the drug hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) can help treat or prevent COVID-19.

The study, called “Prevention and Treatment of COVID-19 with HCQ (PATCH),” is currently enrolling patients in three separate sub-studies and is scheduled to launch next week.

Hydroxychloroquine is an antimalarial drug used regularly by people with autoimmune diseases. In lab tests, it has shown promise for preventing viruses from spreading on a cellular level, including in the viruses that caused the SARS and MERS epidemics, the properties of which are similar to the current coronavirus. Some research was published on the drug when those viruses were circulating, but after the epidemics died down, its popularity in the academic community waned.

When people across the globe began falling ill with COVID-19, it led to renewed interest in hydroxychloroquine among scientists — and to President Donald Trump hailing the medication as a game-changer before clinical trials had proved anything about its efficacy. As a result, people who desperately depend on the drug have had a hard time finding it, and incorrect use of it even led one Arizona man to his death. Now, researchers are testing the drug in rigorous clinical trials to see if it can, in fact, prove effective in limiting the virus’ spread within the body.

Ravi K. Amaravadi, the lead investigator on the trial, is an associate professor of hematology-oncology at Penn who has spent the last decade running clinical trials to see how hydroxychloroquine can help treat various types of cancer cells. Though those trials are still ongoing, he said, the particulars of their design and existing research teams made it easier to get a similar trial for COVID-19 off the ground.

For a virus like SARS-CoV-2 to infect the body, it must reach a part of a cell called the lysosome. The acidic environment there allows the virus to emerge from its shell, which it must do to replicate and be transmitted to more cells, ultimately spreading infection throughout the body.