Scientists at Cambridge University have identified 200 approved drugs which have been predicted to work against COVID-19, with 40 currently being tests in clinical trials to test the effectiveness of the drug.
The team of researchers from Cambridge University used computational biology and machine learning to gather a map of proteins that are involved in SARS-CoV-2 infection. They then continued to identify 200 approved drugs out of 2,000 using computer modelling, to find which had the most potential to be effective against COVID-19.
When tested, they found two specific drugs in particular - an antimalarial drug and a rheumatoid arthritis medicine - were able to suppress the COVID-19 virus. Both drugs were successful in reducing the viral replication in cells and the results highlighted their potential use to prevent infection and their ability to treat the virus.
“We hope this resource of potential drugs will accelerate the development of new drugs against COVID-19. We believe our approach will be useful for responding rapidly to new variants of SARS-CoV2 and other new pathogens that could drive future pandemics” - Namshik Han Head of Computational Research and AI at the Milner Therapeutics Institute.
This is encouraging news for scientists as they continue their quest to find new and effective treatments against the COVID-19. The next step is to continue testing each drug and measuring their results during the clinical trials.