In search of a COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutics
Citation
Groutas, William. (2020, May 11) In search of a COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutics [Video]. In Perspectives on the Pandemic, Part I. https://youtu.be/itko6S2N5IQ?list=PL2X8Er7MV7iMF2gPJtyzvyOpkMa8LQfyl
Abstract
Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2, and the end of March 2020, there have been almost 1,500,000 cases of COVID-19 and more than 90,000 deaths worldwide. There are currently no FDA-approved vaccines or small molecule therapeutics for the treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19, underscoring the need for effective countermeasures to halt the growing pandemic. The presentation will briefly review coronaviruses, their life cycle, and state-of-the art progress in the development of vaccines and immunotherapeutics, as well as the use of repurposed drugs. Lastly, progress by our research group related to the discovery of inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease, an enzyme essential for viral replication, will also be discussed briefly.
Description
Professor William Groutas received his B.S., honors, degree in Chemistry from the American University of Beirut and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Kentucky. Following completion of a postdoctoral fellowship in Bioorganic Chemistry at Cornell University, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire before moving to Wichita State University, where he is currently the WSU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. His research interests lie in the general areas of medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and development, and mechanistic enzymology, with primary focus on the structure-based design of inhibitors of viral proteases of medical relevance, e.g., noroviruses, coronaviruses.