Pharma R&D Today
Ideas and Insight supporting all stages of Drug Discovery & Development
Modeling Coronavirus – Cytokine Storm
Posted on September 4th, 2020 by Chris Cheadle PhD in COVID-19
Adapted from Sidiqi, H.K. and M.R. Mehra, COVID-19 Illness in Native and Immunosuppressed States: A Clinical-Therapeutic Staging Proposal. J Heart Lung Transplant, 2020. [1]
(This piece was co-authored by Prof. Gordon Broderick, Clinical Systems Biology at Rochester General Hospital.)
The thing that kills you with coronavirus is not necessarily the infection itself but rather your own body’s response to the infection. Failure to clear the virus with an appropriate immune response can lead to pulmonary symptoms of increasing severity and which can even be fatal in a minority of cases (Figure 1). This late stage of a COVID-19 infection is characterized by a state of hyperinflammation or, as it is more commonly known, a “cytokine storm”.
(more…)Research Data Alliance Releases Guidelines for COVID-19 Data Sharing
Posted on July 24th, 2020 by Xuanyan Xu in COVID-19
The Research Data Alliance (RDA) has released its final version of the RDA COVID-19 Recommendations and Guidelines on data sharing for COVID-19, which covers four main research areas: clinical data, omics practices, epidemiology and social sciences. The document also touches on issues like community participation, legal and ethical considerations, research software and indigenous data.
(more…)Drug Repurposing for SARS-CoV-2 Using Network Polypharmacological Approach
Posted on June 9th, 2020 by Helena Deus in COVID-19
Drug development is a multidisciplinary field that requires a drug to successfully pass through different stages — from chemical design to biological experimentation on cells and animals, and finally three phases of human clinical trials — before being approved by the FDA for clinical administration. However, following such a path would not be feasible under circumstances where rapid discoveries are required, such as in the case of the current SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. Hence, repurpose of already approved FDA drugs could help in such circumstances, which can save effort, time and money.
(more…)Navigating the Virus Regulation Pathway through Text Mining and Knowledge Graph
Posted on May 20th, 2020 by Helena Deus in COVID-19
A computer virus exploits the operating system of a computer to replicate (copy itself) and send copies of itself to other computers in the network. In the same manner, a human virus manipulates the cell’s “operating system,” managed by cellular proteins, to replicate and infect other cells in the body. Specifically, the virus forces the cell to terminate its ongoing operations and start making copies of its viral particles by controlling the expression and behavior of pre-existing proteins in the cell.
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