The rapid development of safe and effective vaccines has helped bring the pandemic under control. However, with the rise of variants and an uneven global distribution of vaccines, COVID-19 is a disease we will have to manage for some time.
Antiviral drugs that target the way the virus replicates may be the best option for treating outbreaks of COVID-19 in unvaccinated and under-vaccinated populations.
Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, researchers from the University of Alberta (U of A) have isolated some promising inhibitors that could be used to treat COVID-19 infections. The scientists used the synchrotron remotely during the facility’s special COVID-19 call for proposals, an initiative created to support research to help fight the pandemic.
The team’s findings have been recently published in the European Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.
“With the help of the CLS, and the multiple teams here at the U of A, including the our lab and the Young lab in the Department of Biochemistry, Vederas lab in the Department of Chemistry, and Tyrrell team in Medical Microbiology and Immunology Department, we’ve been very efficient at developing a group of inhibitors that is very promising,” said Joanne Lemieux, a professor at the U of A.
Read more on the CLS website
Image: Michel Fodje, CLS Senior Scientist, using the CMCF beamline at the CLS, which was used for this project.
Credit: Canadian Light Source