A UNC initiative is looking to create five new antiviral drugs to better prepare for future viral outbreaks.
READDI, or the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Discovery Initiative, is a collaboration between scientists at UNC’s School of Medicine, the Eshelman School of Pharmacy and the Gillings School of Global Public Health.
Nat Moorman is a faculty member in UNC’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology and one of the founders of READDI.
He said creating antiviral drugs in preparation for an outbreak is not a new idea. UNC’s Infectious Disease Drug Discovery Program, the precursor to READDI, was already working to find drugs that would inhibit viruses a year and a half before COVID-19 emerged. Now, Moorman said the program has expanded to achieve a larger goal.
“Why don’t we start thinking about how we can prevent the next pandemic, even while at the same time working to solve the current problem,” Moorman said. “So, that was really the genesis of READDI – was to take our existing program and instead of thinking about things we already knew about, thinking about how we could apply that same approach to prevent the next virus, so that we’re ready for SARS3 or SARS4 or whatever virus emerges next.”
READDI is focused on viral families, like coronaviruses, that have the potential to cause epidemics and pandemics and also lack existing, approved therapeutics. The initiative hopes to develop five broad-spectrum, antiviral drugs and complete the first phase of clinical testing – demonstrating the drugs can be administered safely in healthy individuals – in the next five years.
Moorman said the preemptive creation of these antiviral drugs will be imperative in easing future pandemic hardships and preventing serious illness.
“What I envision is, when that next virus emerges, instead of trying to figure out in real time in the clinic with patients what’s the best way to help these people – instead, imagine that you start to feel sick, you go to a testing center, you get your test results and rather than having to wait until you get very ill to go to the hospital and seek medical treatment, you can just go drive through the pharmacy and pick up a pill that’s already there and ready to treat you,” Moorman said.
Moorman said READDI’s strategy for making these drugs is to focus on pieces of the infected cell that viruses need to replicate. He said by focusing on blocking cellular changes, scientists can begin creating drugs for viruses with sequences not yet known.
“What we know is that if we look across different members of one virus family, they tend to use the same pieces of the cell to replicate themselves,” Moorman said. “So, if we make a drug that targets the activity of that piece of the cell that the virus needs, we can show that it will be active against a large number of viruses that already exists in that family. And if that’s true, then we can have really high confidence that it will be active against a new newly emerging member of that same virus family.”
John Bamforth is a faculty member at UNC’s School of Pharmacy and the Director of the Eshelman Institute for Innovation – one of the initial funders of the Infectious Disease Drug Discovery Program and, now, READDI.
He said creating five antiviral drugs in the next five years is a lofty goal, especially as the READDI team is working to create therapeutics for viruses that may not exist yet.
“We were focused on three viral families – coronavirus and two others – because we think they are the viral families that represent the biggest risk,” Bamforth said. “There are others, you know, obviously influenza and some others, but we decided to start there.”
As READDI hits the ground running, Bamforth said the collaboration between UNC schools, and between Moorman and himself, has been a bright spot in what has been a very tumultuous year.
“Nat and I have spent an entire year together doing this work, and you know sitting in two different schools,” Bamforth said. “This idea of being prepared for the next time we’re in this situation I think is something that’s brought all the players together, which is pretty cool to see it all.”
To learn more about READDI, click here.
Chapelboro.com does not charge subscription fees. You can support local journalism and our mission to serve the community. Contribute today – every single dollar matters.
Comments on Chapelboro are moderated according to our Community Guidelines