COVID-19
Drug repurposing for the battle against COVID-19 The race has been on since the start of the pandemic to develop vaccines and drugs to fight against the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Vaccine development has proven successful, with vaccine roll-out underway in many countries, but the need remains to identify drugs that can treat the disease for those who have not been vaccinated, or for those where the vaccine is not effective enough to prevent disease. Researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Translational Medicine and Pharmacology (ITMP) in Hamburg, Germany, have been using high throughput drug approaches to screen compound libraries for candidate antiviral drugs. The SARS-CoV-2 virus was identified,
have time to wait for these disease
rapidly analyzed in in vivo efficacy
isolated and sequenced within a short
mechanisms to be fully elucidated
studies, and ultimately clinical trials.
time of this novel pathogen emerging
before beginning screening for drugs
Philip explained: “In January 2020, our
into the community. However, at that
that could directly treat or alleviate the
collaborator – Professor Sandra Ciesek
time, the precise details of how the
symptoms in COVID-19 patients.
from the Institute for Medical Virology
viral infection affects tissues and
at University Hospital Frankfurt – had
organs, or how this contributes to the
Dr Philip Gribbon, Head of Innovation
access to some of the first clinical
development of disease, were not clear.
Area Drug Screening & Compound
isolates of the coronavirus in Europe,
This knowledge of infection and
Repurposing, and his colleagues at
and established an assay to screen
disease-related mechanisms is normally
Fraunhofer ITMP are experienced in
against the virus on a very short
critical to developing medicines,
carrying out screening assays to
timescale. Working closely with
allowing researchers to target key virus
identify compounds that can be
Professor Ciesek, we then began
replication, or virus-host interactome
repurposed. They understood that
screening Fraunhofer ITMP’s collection
associated pathways with small
screening known drugs and drug
of over 5,500 bioactive compounds,
molecule compounds or biologicals.
analogs against SARS-CoV-2 would
including 3,000 clinical stage drugs,
Unfortunately, the growing global
allow them to identify candidate
for their antiviral activity.”
crisis meant that researchers did not
compounds with the potential to be
The Fluent Automation Workstation in use in the laboratory at Fraunhofer ITMP 14
TECAN JOURNAL 2/2021
