March 11, 2021

Researchers Race To Develop Antiviral Weapons To Fight The Pandemic Coronavirus-Science Magazine

In March 2020, as the scope of the COVID-19 pandemic was coming into view, Jen Nwankwo and colleagues turned a pair of artificial intelligence (AI) tools against SARS-CoV-2. One newly developed AI program, called SUEDE, digitally screens all known druglike compounds for likely activity against biomolecules thought to be involved in disease. The other, BAGEL, predicts how to build inhibitors to known targets. The two programs searched for compounds able to block human enzymes that play essential roles in enabling the virus to infect our cells. Designing and developing a medicine is almost always painfully slow, regularly taking at least a decade. Many steps—such as animal studies, tweaking molecules to avoid side effects, and clinical trials—can’t be accelerated. But the race toward new treatments against COVID-19 is off to a blistering start as researchers accelerate other parts of the search, deploying supercomputers, robots, synchrotrons, and every other tool they have to find and lab test possible medicines at speed. According to a biotech industry drug tracker, some 239 antiviral molecules against COVID-19 are under development, targeting multiple parts of the viral life cycle. Science Magazine, 03/11/2021