Leading role for LUMC in largest European search for corona treatment
August 18, 2020
LEIDS - The Leiden University Medical Center (LUMC) plays a leading role in the largest European search for new coronavirus treatments.Researchers from the LUMC will work with 36 academic and industrial partners on new treatments for the corona virus.The working group is supported with more than 77 million euros.LUMC scientists are involved in the complete trajectory of drug development.
The researchers' goal is to develop solutions to the current COVID-19 pandemic and to prevent future coronavirus outbreaks of this magnitude. The parties will follow three avenues in search of new treatments: reuse of existing drugs, screening of large 'libraries' of chemical substances and targeted design of drugs that block specific viral functions. After experiments in the laboratory, most promising drug candidates make the step to research in animal models and clinical studies with humans.
Four million euros for LUMC
With a budget of approximately four million euros, the LUMC is one of the most important academic partners of the five-year project.LUMC researchers contribute to the full trajectory of drug development, from identification of viral functions that could be inhibited, through drug screening and design, to studies in animal models.Prof.Dr. Eric Snijder, Dr. Martijn van Hemert and Dr. Marjolein Kikkert from the Department of Medical Microbiology coordinate these efforts.
"The project will hopefully deliver a handful of antiviral drugs to treat current COVID-19 patients," says Snijder. "In a broader sense, we want to develop drugs that inhibit a whole family of coronaviruses, so that we can quickly stop impending future outbreaks."
Research into virus inhibitors
The LUMC Molecular Virology research group will unravel how SARS-CoV-2 multiplies and how it uses the human cell for this.'This information is crucial to identify new starting points for medicines and to continue to improve virus inhibitors.The research also results in a wide variety of 'molecular tools' and infection models.These can be used to accelerate the development of antiviral drugs and to find out how they work. '
The researchers will also screen a large collection of approved existing drugs for possible inhibition of SARS-CoV-2.They are looking for drugs that alone or in combination are useful for the treatment with COVID-19.
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