IIT-BHU to repurpose drugs from DrugBank for Covid-19

Chethan Kumar / TNN / Updated: Jun 2, 2020, 17:09 IST

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Scientists at IIT (BHU) in Varanasi are identifying the lead compound(s) from available and approved drugs for fast-track anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug molecules. And, the Science and Engineering Research Board under the Department of Science and Technology has approved support for the research. Repurposing of pre-existing drugs could help circumvent both the time and money.

IIT-BHU to repurpose drugs from DrugBank for Covid-19

BENGALURU: Scientists at IIT (BHU) in Varanasi have begun to identify lead compound(s) from available and approved drugs for fast-track anti-SARS-CoV-2 drug molecules. And, the Science and Engineering Research Board (SERB) under the Department of Science and Technology (DST) has approved support for the research.
“Scientists and healthcare professionals all over the world are trying for a cure for the pandemic, which afflicts the world today.

At present, available treatments are focused only on symptomatic relief to help the patient overcome the infection. Repurposing of pre-existing drugs could help circumvent both the time and money required to find an effective cure,” the DST said.
The research group led by Prof Vikash Kumar Dubey is working on developing new drug candidates against SARS-CoV-2 by exploring DrugBank — DrugBank is a database of FDA approved drug compounds — database.
“The database will be used for searching drugs against SARS-CoV-2 database compounds as an inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 main protease, a key enzyme required for SARS-CoV-2 assembly and multiplication. They will be carrying out extensive computational and experimental studies to identify an inhibitor of SARS-CoV-2 main protease,” DST added.

Taking advantage of available crystal structure of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, a structure- based inhibitor design will be done by the researchers from the available FDA approved drugs compounds in the database.
“Subsequently, experimental validation of the designed inhibitor(s) on recombinant (relating to) SARS-CoV-2 Mpro protein will be carried out. Various inhibitor parameters will be calculated to establish the effectiveness of the inhibition of the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro enzyme function,” the DST said.
The DST added that the SARS-CoV-2 Mpro enzyme is key for processing and polyprotein for virus assembly. Therefore, the inhibition of this key protein can have an antiviral effect. As most of DrugBank database compounds are characterized in terms of pharmacokinetics and toxicity, the identified molecule could be brought to the market rapidly

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Chethan Kumar

As a young democracy grows out of adolescence, its rolling out reels and reels of tales. If the first post office or a telephone connection paints one colour, the Stamp of a stock market scam or the ‘Jewel Thieves’ scandal paint yet another colour. If failure of a sounding rocket was a stepping stone, sending 104 satellites in one go was a podium. If farmer suicides are a bad climax, growing number of Unicorns are a grand entry. Chethan Kumar, Senior Assistant Editor, The Times of India, who alternates between the mundane goings-on of the hoi polloi and the wonder-filled worlds of scientists and scamsters, politicians and Jawans, feels: There’s always a story, one just has to find it.

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