An algorithmic tool that can identify existing drugs in order to combat future pandemics offers the possibility of responding more quickly to public-health crises.

“There is no silver bullet to defeat the COVID pandemic as it takes us over a public-health roller-coaster of deaths and devastation,” says Naomi Maria, an immunologist and visiting scientist at New York University’s Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and lead author of a new study in the journal Cell Press.

“However, using this AI tool, coupled with in vitro data and other resources, we’ve been able to model the SARS-CoV-2 infection and identify several COVID-19 drugs currently available as potentially effective in battling the next outbreak.”

“Drug repurposing strategies provide an attractive and effective approach for quickly targeting potential new interventions,” says senior author Bud Mishra, a professor at Courant. “Identifying and selecting ahead of time the best candidates, prior to costly and laborious in vitro and in vivo experiments and ensuing clinical trials, could significantly improve disease-specific drug development.”

COVID-19 has shown to be a daunting challenge over the past three years, even though vaccines and hygienic practices have, over time, lessened its severity.

However, despite these tools to combat it, SARS-CoV-2—the virus that causes COVID-19—continues to spread and take lives. This is due, in part, to its ability to rapidly diversify in its target cell-types, immune-response pathways, and modes of transmission.

These traits make traditional approaches to vaccine and drug design less effective than in the past—and especially when the virus co-infects with other pathogens, such as RSV and influenza.

Recognizing that current methods leave us chasing the virus, the researchers came up with an approach aimed at closing the gap in future pandemics: repurposing existing drugs to fight back.

Read the full article about tools to help fight future pandemics by James Devitt at Futurity.