We need a variety of tools to control the epidemic. Treatments that can help manage the disease for patients with serious symptoms are being shifted by scientists.
A small molecule that may help combat COVID-19 has been discovered by a group of people using the Canadian Light Source.
Your cells are turned into virus factories that make thousands of copies of themselves. If the virus has functioning genes, it can replicate this way. The team is focused on small Molecules that can bind to and block the replication process, like throwing a wrench into the machine that builds Viruses. The molecules can kill the virus.
There is a need for more than vaccine-related efforts.
He said that we need to look at additional strategies to tackle COVID-19 in the wake of immune-evading variant and low vaccine take across the globe.
I think it will be important to find a new normal in which we can return to what we were before.
The first small molecule therapeutic from Pfizer was recently approved in Canada. This molecule is different from the one the team analyzed at the CLS. It is necessary to have a variety of molecules for the treatment of the virus.
It is nice to have different tools to target this. Moitessier, a professor in the Department of Chemistry, says that what is important is that the molecule is very different.
There are other benefits to having a therapeutic developed. The team is hopeful that its molecule can be effective as an oral treatment for COVID-19 patients, and a Canadian-developed drug might make the treatment more accessible to patients and physicians in Canada.
The researchers were able to see how effective their molecule was by using the crystallography beamline.
We use software to design these new molecules, then we go to the lab and make them, but we don't have any proof that it reallybinds to the proteins Moitessier said crystallography was key to confirm the mechanism of action.
More information: Julia K. Stille et al, Design, synthesis and in vitro evaluation of novel SARS-CoV-2 3CLpro covalent inhibitors, European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry (2021). DOI: 10.1016/j.ejmech.2021.114046 Citation: Creating an arsenal of COVID-19 therapeutics (2022, March 18) retrieved 18 March 2022 from https://phys.org/news/2022-03-arsenal-covid-therapeutics.html This document is subject to copyright. Apart from any fair dealing for the purpose of private study or research, no part may be reproduced without the written permission. The content is provided for information purposes only.
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