Scientific research
The ends justify the search Computer modeling has helped Belarusian scientists to find chemical compounds blocking the coronavirus
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he question of how to treat pa‑ tients with coronavirus is still open. Not wonder, the minds of many researchers around the world are put to the search of a targeted anticoronavirus agent. Our sci‑ entists are also contributing to this work. Project Manager — Director of the Unit‑ ed Institute of Informatics Problems of the National Academy of Sciences of Belarus Alexander Tuzikov, reveals some details.
With a long-term perspective There’s a near and far future in drug de‑ velopment. Usually they are developed for specific diseases, and it is a complicated, long, expensive process. But when there are emergencies like the current pandemic, the natural approach is to choose the options from the existing drugs. In recent months, there has been a lot of news from various re‑ search groups offering not only well-known antiviral drugs, but also antiparasitic and even hormonal drugs to treat COVID‑19. It does not mean that they are well suited for the new role, because they were originally created for the treatment of other diseases. But when you need to urgently decide on the treatment and it is necessary to have at least some drugs, this is a way out. — The fact is that a drug is not just a chemical compound that has a neu‑ tralizing effect on, say, bacteria and vi‑ ruses. It is important that it has also gone through a long process of verification of
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беларусь. belarus 2020
Alexander Tuzikov
useful properties, meets many require‑ ments, including safety, has minimal side effects. That is why, in urgent situations search for already known drugs that have been clinically tested is the fastest way. Re‑ cently, a large number of such studies have been conducted, many articles have been published. But today, there are no drugs specifically targeted against SARS-CoV‑2. And we are in the process of creating them, which is a long-term issue, — Alexander Tuzikov introduces us to the problem The research group includes the staff of the Laboratory of Mathematical Cybernet‑
ics of the UIIP NAS, which is headed by our interlocutor, as well as representatives of the Institute of Bio-Organic Chemis‑ try of the National Academy of Sciences, Doctor of Chemical Sciences Alexander Andrianov and Candidate of Chemical Sciences Yury Kornoushenko. Such an al‑ liance is not accidental. A significant role in the creation of new drugs is now played by computer modeling, computer search of compounds that can potentially become effective drugs against this coronavirus, and then they are tested in practice.
