Publications by authors named "Victor O Gawriljuk"

Plasmodium falciparum is the main causative agent of malaria, a deadly disease that mainly affects children under five years old. Artemisinin-based combination therapies have been pivotal in controlling the disease, but resistance has arisen in various regions, increasing the risk of treatment failure. The non-mevalonate pathway is essential for the isoprenoid synthesis in Plasmodium and provides several under-explored targets to be used in the discovery of new antimalarials.

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Article Synopsis
  • * The NS3 helicase protein of ZIKV is a key target for drug development due to its role in viral replication, but challenges exist due to inadequate structural data for designing specific inhibitors.
  • * High-throughput crystallographic fragment screening identified 46 fragments that bind to NS3, providing valuable 3D structures that can help design new antiviral drugs to combat ZIKV and other flaviviruses.
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Article Synopsis
  • - The COVID Moonshot was a collaborative, open-science effort focused on finding a new drug to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, which is crucial for the virus's survival.
  • - Researchers developed a novel noncovalent, nonpeptidic inhibitor that stands out from existing drugs targeting the same protease, employing advanced techniques like machine learning and high-throughput structural biology.
  • - Over 18,000 compound designs, 490 ligand-bound x-ray structures, and extensive assay data were generated and shared openly, creating a comprehensive and accessible knowledge base for future drug discovery efforts against coronaviruses.
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There are very few small-molecule antivirals for SARS-CoV-2 that are either currently approved (or emergency authorized) in the US or globally, including remdesivir, molnupiravir, and paxlovid. The increasing number of SARS-CoV-2 variants that have appeared since the outbreak began over three years ago raises the need for continual development of updated vaccines and orally available antivirals in order to fully protect or treat the population. The viral main protease (M) and the papain-like protease (PL) are key for viral replication; therefore, they represent valuable targets for antiviral therapy.

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Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the causative agent of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The NSP15 endoribonuclease enzyme, known as NendoU, is highly conserved and plays a critical role in the ability of the virus to evade the immune system. NendoU is a promising target for the development of new antiviral drugs.

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There are currently relatively few small-molecule antiviral drugs that are either approved or emergency-approved for use against severe acute respiratory coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). One of these is remdesivir, which was originally repurposed from its use against Ebola. We evaluated three molecules we had previously identified computationally with antiviral activity against Ebola and Marburg and identified pyronaridine, which inhibited the SARS-CoV-2 replication in A549-ACE2 cells.

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The development of drug resistance by Mycobacterium tuberculosis and other pathogenic bacteria emphasizes the need for new antibiotics. Unlike animals, most bacteria synthesize isoprenoid precursors through the MEP pathway. 1-Deoxy-D-xylulose 5-phosphate synthase (DXPS) catalyzes the first reaction of the MEP pathway and is an attractive target for the development of new antibiotics.

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Antiviral drug discovery requires the development of reliable biochemical and cellular assays that can be performed in high-throughput screening (HTS) formats. The flavivirus non-structural (NS) proteins are thought to co-translationally assemble on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) membranes, forming the replication complex (RC). The NS3 and NS5 are the most studied enzymes of the RC and constitute the main targets for drug development due to their crucial roles in viral genome replication.

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The COVID-19 outbreak has rapidly spread on a global scale, affecting the economy and public health systems throughout the world. In recent years, peptide-based therapeutics have been widely studied and developed to treat infectious diseases, including viral infections. Herein, the antiviral effects of the lysine linked dimer des-Cys, Lys,Lys-(pBthTX-I)K () and derivatives against SARS-CoV-2 are reported.

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With the rapidly evolving SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, there is an urgent need for the discovery of further treatments for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Drug repurposing is one of the most rapid strategies for addressing this need, and numerous compounds have already been selected for testing by several groups. These have led to a growing database of molecules with activity against the virus.

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Yellow fever (YF) is an acute viral hemorrhagic disease transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Large epidemics of YF occur when the virus is introduced into heavily populated areas with high mosquito density and low vaccination coverage. The lack of a specific small molecule drug treatment against YF as well as for homologous infections, such as zika and dengue, highlights the importance of these flaviviruses as a public health concern.

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The growing quantity of public and private data sets focused on small molecules screened against biological targets or whole organisms provides a wealth of drug discovery relevant data. This is matched by the availability of machine learning algorithms such as Support Vector Machines (SVM) and Deep Neural Networks (DNN) that are computationally expensive to perform on very large data sets with thousands of molecular descriptors. Quantum computer (QC) algorithms have been proposed to offer an approach to accelerate quantum machine learning over classical computer (CC) algorithms, however with significant limitations.

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The 2015/16 Zika virus (ZIKV) epidemic led to almost 1 million confirmed cases in 84 countries and was associated to the development of congenital microcephaly and Guillain-Barré syndrome. More recently, a ZIKV African lineage was identified in Brazil raising concerns about a future outbreak. The long-term consequences of viral infection emphasizes the need for the development of effective anti-ZIKV drugs.

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Background: The Yellow Fever virus (YFV) is transmitted by mosquitos and causes an infection with symptoms including fever, headaches and nausea. In 20-50% of the cases, the disease may evolve to a visceral stage, reaching high mortality rates. YFV NS2B-NS3 protease has been identified as an important drug target.

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