柑橘直播

While COVID-19 vaccines have made tremendous strides in beating back the virus that brought life as we know it to a standstill, emerging variants and our immune system鈥檚 response could mean that the vaccines will not continue to offer the necessary protection. As we await new vaccines, anti-virus agents will be needed to save patients鈥� lives from future coronavirus. The lack of effective anti-coronavirus drugs to date is one of the major reasons for the 3.8 million COVID-19 related deaths (as of June 14, 2021).

Preliminary study indicates that SARS-CoV-2, like other coronaviruses, has 16 non-structural proteins that are highly conserved in known coronaviruses species (e.g., SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV). According to Chemical and Biological Engineering Associate Professor Dr. Zuyi 鈥淛acky鈥� Huang, 鈥淚f effective inhibitors can be identified against the protein targets that may be highly conserved in future coronaviruses, these inhibitors may provide a quick solution to cure people infected with the new viruses.鈥� In his Biological & Environmental Systems Engineering Laboratory at 柑橘直播 University, Dr. Huang and his team developed a computational platform that has accelerated the discovery of chemical compound inhibitors against 3CLPro, a protease that is essential for the replication of COVID-19. Two chemical compounds have been identified and validated by experiment for their inhibition on 3CLPro. The result has been awarded a provisional patent and published as 鈥淎n Integrated Computational and Experimental Approach to Identifying Inhibitors for SARS-CoV-2 3CL Protease鈥� in 鈥� May 17, 2021.  

Dr. Huang is seeking clinical collaborators to further test his compounds as a potential treatment option for future coronaviruses.