Rapid Computational Screening of Natural Products for COVID-19 Anti-Viral Agents

Edible compounds can be used as potent antiviral agents and, in fact, have been tested successfully against SARS and MERS viruses. They have the potential to be a cure against COVID-19 and are a can be rapidly produced and deployed. These compounds are commercially available, and are generally recognized as safe (GRAS), with a vast chemical diversity.

Despite the high-level genetic similarity to other coronaviruses, such as SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV, recent research has demonstrated major structural differences in SARS-CoV2 (the causal agent of COVID-19 disease) proteins from these other coronaviruses. The need for specific anti-SARS-COV2 treatments is acute.

Our lab has chemo-informatic modeling tools that can provide rapid screening of the food derived compounds, and identify of a small number of potent antiviral candidate inhibitors  for the recently published SARS-CoV2 target proteins.