By Heather Hobbs


BRINGING YOU THE LATEST NEWS & EVENTS FROM THE SCIENCE INDUSTRY Antivirals Discovery Initiative Receives NIH Support


“If we had clinic-ready antivirals suitable for SARS-CoV-2 when the pandemic struck in late 2019, we could have perhaps saved millions of lives,” said Dr Ben Perry, Discovery Open Innovation Leader at the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative (DNDi) and a founder of the COVID Moonshot. “The world needs a diverse stockpile of novel antiviral compounds that can be quickly mobilised when the next pandemic strikes, and it is essential these be affordable and equitably accessible to everyone.”


DNDi is one of the three institutions leading the Consortium, along with artifi cial intelligence (AI)-driven biotech PostEra and the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center.


ASAP will be one of the Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) Centers for Pathogens of Pandemic Concern funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) as part of the Antiviral Program for Pandemics (APP).


Diamond’s beamline 104-1 Experimental Hutch sample changer and sample environment (Credit: Diamond Light Source)


A bid to discover and develop accessible and affordable oral antivirals to combat outbreaks of COVID-19 and future pandemics has received an initial award of $68 million from the US National Institutes of Health (NIH) that will fund the fi rst three-years of a fi ve-year project to produce preclinical candidates against six viral targets.


A consortium of international scientists will pursue successes achieved by the global, open science COVID Moonshot Project to create an AI-driven Structure-enabled Antiviral Platform (ASAP), built around advanced structural biology, AI and machine learning, as well as computational chemistry on Folding@home - the world’s largest distributed computing platform - to drive robust antiviral discovery.


Initiated in March 2020, the COVID Moonshot collaboration rapidly identifi ed potent antivirals targeting the main protease of the SARS-CoV-2 virus which are currently undergoing a preclinical program funded by the Wellcome Trust / COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator. The open science data publicly shared by Moonshot additionally enabled the identifi cation of another promising COVID-19 drug developed by the Japanese pharmaceutical company Shionogi that is now in late-stage clinical trials.


“The rapid progress of Moonshot demonstrates the power of AI-driven drug design,” said Dr Alpha Lee, Chief Scientifi c Offi cer of PostEra and a founder of the COVID Moonshot. “Our algorithms generate molecules with optimised properties that can quickly be made and tested in the lab and help us select the most important experiments. ASAP will take this to the next level.” Dr Lee is one of the leaders of ASAP.


Diamond Light Source UK (Credit: Diamond Light Source)


Other ASAP partners include the Diamond Light Source (UK); the Weizmann Institute of Science (Israel); Medchemica (UK); Mount Sinai (USA); Stanford University School of Medicine (USA); the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center (USA), as well as a vast global network of scientists and industry collaborators.


Targeting viral families that have been historically neglected by the market, with an initial focus on coronaviruses (responsible for the current COVID-19 pandemic as well as earlier SARS and MERS epidemics), ASAP will aim to address fl aviviruses (responsible for large endemic diseases such as Dengue and Zika); and picornaviruses (responsible for devastating diseases such as polio).


More information online: ilmt.co/PL/GyKy 58126pr@reply-direct.com


ISPPP 2022 - Florida, 16th - 19th October Quantum Technologies: Conference Call


Building on the success of the series of Joint Symposia on Quantum Technologies held over 2021 and 2022, The National Physical Laboratory (NPL) will host the fi rst in-person Joint Symposium on Quantum Technologies on 13th - 14th September 2022 at the NPL facilities in Teddington, UK.


The event will include speakers from across industry and academia to both provide a broad introduction to and present the latest advances across all pillars of quantum technologies including: Quantum Networks & Computation, Quantum Integrated Circuits, Quantum Metrology & Standards and Forging Market Connections.


The Opal Grand Oceanfront Resort and Spa, Delray Beach, Florida is the host venue for the 41st annual International Symposium on the Separation of Proteins, Peptides & Polynucleotides to be held this year from 16-19 October.


Mass spectroscopists and chromatographers from around the world, who will deliver some of the most cutting- edge presentations on the separation, purifi cation and characterisation of biologically important molecules and assemblies, will also address key developments and applications, as well as productivity and fi nancial challenges.


Alongside discussion of novel approaches related to separations and analysis, there will also be a strong focus on the latest innovations in technologies that are critical in clinical and biopharmaceutical research and which meet requirements in the manufacturing and quality control of new biotherapies and diagnostics. Symposium and exhibit Manger Jonathan Edelman said: “It’s an exciting time for the separation science of biological


molecules. The fi eld continues to grow and adapt, enjoy better materials, instruments and methods and a seemingly never- ending list of interesting molecules to work on.


“The Opal Grand Oceanfront Resort and Spa is an excellent and scenic facility, at a site in which we have previously hosted a successful scientifi c Symposia, which predicts a great opportunity for us in 2022. This represents a truly unique opportunity to pursue biologically-oriented separations and analysis at a time when there has been an enormous expansion of applications and technologies, driven by a huge societal and commercial need.”


Registration, required for entry, is available on the ISPPP website.


More information online: ilmt.co/PL/Dy4d 58127pr@reply-direct.com


This conference will also bring together international scientists and engineers from the emerging quantum industries to discuss the feasibility of, as well as the scope of challenges to, the commercialisation of quantum technologies.


NPL is collaborating on this conference with the UK Quantum hubs, Institute of Physics, IEEE UK and Ireland Quantum Group and Photonics Chapter, and IET. As with its predecessors, this conference is also fully supported by all mainstream international standards development organisations: ITU, IEC, ISO, BSI, CEN/CENELEC, ETSI.


Call for papers


You are invited to submit your latest research to this conference. Accepted papers will be published in the conference proceedings by the Institute of Physics.


More information online: ilmt.co/PL/ZkPv 58138pr@reply-direct.com


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