Newly funded: Preventing SARS-CoV-2 from replicating

The COVID-19 outbreak has crystallized the urgent need for therapeutics to better prevent transmission in human populations. Viruses are not living, so they cannot reproduce on their own — they rely on host cells to get the energy, enzymes, and precursors they need to produce the proteins necessary to replicate. So, stopping the virus from being able to generate proteins when it is inside a host cell is fundamental to limiting the development of COVID-19 as well as its transmission. A study being led by Kathleen Boris Lawrie, PhD, will produce lead compounds that restrain SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from producing viral proteins, curbing transmission rates. Previously, this team of researchers has gathered preliminary data identifying compounds to reduce virion production of HIV. This work is funded by the UMN COVID-19 Rapid Response Research Grants program. It began in April 2020 and will continue until March 2021.