It has been nineteen months since the pandemic has started. One of the most important things is we need an antiviral drug for the Covid-19. It is the main target and the only need to escape from this present situation.
Since the starting of the pandemic, covid-19 was rapidly increasing in new variants and developing different strains. Developing an antidrug for the covid-19 virus takes many years to develop the drug, for example, hepatitis C, HIV, and human papillomavirus (HPV).
Biosafety Lab Containment Has Eliminated New Biosensor Method
The development of infection is fast in the patient who is infected by this virus, and hence the experts need some quick methods of detection that can help know the status of the patient, whether he is positive or negative.
That is why they keep on hunting for new methods that can help quick tracking.
It is not an easy task to develop a drug in less time, but the University of Buffalo scientists developed a drug against the SARS-CoV2 virus. The team was led by Rama Dey-Rao, Ph.D., first author and research assistant professor, and Thomas Melendy, Ph.D., senior author, and professor, both in the Department of Microbiology.
In the early months of Paper publishing of antiviral research, screening method to identify a class of antiviral drug that inhabitants the Main Protease (MPro) and a specific SARS-CoV2 target.
UB researchers stated that their screening methods fulfill certain important goals:
- The drug which fully functional on SARS-CoV2 Main Protease; the other methods are slightly altered forms and not an optimal drug for screening.
- The drug evaluates the Main Protease function in human cells.
- The inhabitation of the Main Protease is to develop a positive signal in living cells. The system which produces a negative signal requires false positives caused by cell toxicity.
Melendy said that the other methods would take some time for some months, but this screening method from many compounds with activity against the SARS-CoV2 can be screened within hrs or days; their main priority is to develop this method which will take some time for screening.
The latest screening method is to identify the antiviral in an enzyme called Main Protease. If the virus enters into the cells, it is difficult to produce the other viral enzyme that was required to work inside the infected cell to develop more viruses and spread.
The main advantage of the UB screening method is to eliminate several steps which are involved in the screening of antiviral drugs.
In most cases, inhibitors of a viral enzyme which is increasing by finding and designing molecules that are targeted first target the viral enzymes in the test tube. From that, another testing will be done to determine the toxicity, which is explained by Melendy.
“If there is no virus involved in the high throughput screening, which is not required by the expensive and risky BSL-3 bio-containment,” said Dey-Rao.
A single antiviral drug isn’t enough to screen thousands of compounds. The SARS-CoV2 virus also requires combinations or “cocktails” of antivirals.
“It is not enough to develop one drug efficiently; need to develop more than one drug to target against specific viral proteins,” explained Melendy. It is the main advantage to treat individuals with “cocktails” from more than one drug.
Some strains which are effectively curing patients with a combination and include the inhibitor of the hepatitis C viral genome, another type of viral enzyme, and the hepatitis C viral protease.
Merck SARS-CoV2 antiviral was submitted to the Food and drug administrator in the habit of a SARS-CoV2 genome replicate. “It would be more therapy if it combines with an inhibitor,” said Melendy.
