Optimizing polar, small inhibitors of a viral cysteine protease to identify a lead for an oral COVID-19 treatment [Added supplements: COVID-19 Variant Supplement; COVID-19 Variant Network]
- Funded by Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)
- Total publications:0 publications
Grant number: 172655, 175551, 175573
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Key facts
Disease
COVID-19Start & end year
20202022Known Financial Commitments (USD)
$549,227.81Funder
Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR)Principal Investigator
PendingResearch Location
CanadaLead Research Institution
University of Alberta BiochemistryResearch Priority Alignment
N/A
Research Category
Therapeutics research, development and implementation
Research Subcategory
Pre-clinical studies
Special Interest Tags
N/A
Study Subject
Non-Clinical
Clinical Trial Details
N/A
Broad Policy Alignment
Pending
Age Group
Not Applicable
Vulnerable Population
Not applicable
Occupations of Interest
Not applicable
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused incredible social, personal and economic upheaval and as of early May 2020 killed 275 000 people world-wide and, tragically, is projected to kill millions more. COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV2 (SARS2) virus, which is a coronavirus closely related to SARS. These viruses infect cells and using the host's enzymes and virally encoded proteins create copies of themselves. These viral proteins are different than the host ones and are key targets to stop the viral replication. One such protein for SARS2, nicknamed 3CLP, is key to liberating the viral proteins in order to enable viral replication. Last month compounds we tested strongly inhibited the SARS2 3CLP and were able to inhibit SARS2 replication in a cell-based assay. This proposal is to design and make modifications of those compounds to better inhibit SARS2 and also optimize drug-like properties to discover a Lead compound for the ultimate development of an oral drug to treat COVID-19.