In the wake of surging Coronavirus (COVID-19) cases in the country, the Experimental Pharmacology Laboratory (EPL) at the Department of Pharmacology, PGIMER has taken initiative to design new drugs to fight the virus.
In this regard, a team EPL, under the guidance of Prof Bikash Medhi, Department of Pharmacology, PGIMER comprising Dr Phulen Sarma, Nishant Sekhar, Manisha Prajapat, Dr Pramod Avti, Dr Ajay Prakash, Hardeep Kaur, Dr Subodh Kumar, Dr Harish Kumar and Dr Seema Bansal have identified few potential targets (nucleocapsid protein, protease enzyme, E protein, M Protein, Spike protein), upon which in-silico drug designing was carried out and few important hits were identified in last two months, said an official spokesperson of PGIMER.
The spokesperson said that there are seven strains of human Corona viruses, which include 229E, NL63, OC43, HKU1, MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV and 2019-nCoV, responsible for the infection with special reference to involvement of the respiratory tract (both lower and upper respiratory tract) e.g. common cold, pneumonia, bronchiolitis, rhinitis, pharyngitis, sinusitis and other system symptoms like occasional watery diarrhoea etc.
Among these seven strains, three strains proved to be highly pathogenic (SERS-CoV, MERS-CoV and 2019-nCoV), which caused endemic of severe Corona virus disease. Interestingly, among the hits there were few molecules, which were earlier approved for other conditions.
Thus, the selected hits and the re purposed molecules can be further evaluated in in-vitro and in-vivo platform for further validation, the spokesperson added.
Notably, atleast 108 confirmed cases, an increase of 24 from the day before, of Coronavirus were reported on Sunday in the country. The health experts have warned that adults with underlying conditions such as hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, chronic respiratory disease, and cancer are at highest risk of Coronavirus.