Read more about ASAP's new pan-coronavirus antiviral designed to keep us safe from future pandemics!

He was making drugs for the next pandemic. Then the feds canceled his project Sumit Chanda's search for antivirals is in limbo after NIH halted its pandemic-preparedness program

"If funding isn’t restored soon, Chanda says, promising antivirals will be lost, and the world will be defenseless against the next pandemic."

cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...

Members of Dr. White’s lab, from left to right, wearing white lab coats: Briana McGovern, BS, Senior Research Associate; Meg Gordon, BA, Research Associate; Dr. White; Dr. Suazo; Jared Benjamin, MS, Research Associate.

ASAP is incredibly proud to work with superstar antiviral discovery scientists at Mount Sinai: Briana McGovern, Meg Gordon, Dr. Kris White, Dr. Suazo, and Jared Benjamin, among others!

Read about their important work here:
health.mountsinai.org/blog/stories...

Stories Behind the Science: Preparing to Fight the Next Epidemic | Mount Sinai Today Antivirals saved many lives during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Mount Sinai researchers are involved in discovering new treatments as part a preparedness initiative spearheaded by the National Institute...

Read about the scientists on the front lines working tirelessly to make antivirals to prevent future pandemics in the Kris White lab at Mount Sinai: health.mountsinai.org/blog/stories...

Peter Sjö giving an overview of the COVID Moonshot progression of antivirals from the COVID Moonshot Science paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abo7201

Next up in today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Peter Sjö (@dndi.org) and Annette von Delft (@cmd.ox.ac.uk) of ASAP talking about DNDi-6510, the preclinical candidate from the COVID Moonshot!

asapdiscovery.org/forum

Jeroen Kruter presenting a slide about INFECTA: INFECTA: Dedicated facility To accelerate pharmaceutical development for infectious diseases through innovative research methodologies, strategic collaborations, with a commitment to improving global health outcomes. Realization of early phase clinical research infection unit: - INFECTA-NL servers as supervisory board for INFECTA - Private Limited Company is overseen by directors Ingrid de Visser and Meta Rostenberg - Non-profit purpose Purpose build: - 20 isolation beds (BSL3) - Outpatient clinic - Lab facilities including BSL3/GMP manufacturing Strong legacy from Centre for Human Drug Research and Leiden Medical Center

First up in today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Jeroen Kruter and Ingrid de Visser-Kamerling of INFECTA: infecta.org

asapdiscovery.org/forum/

Join us for the Wed 18 Jun Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum at 11A ET to hear from Ingrid de Visser-Kamerling and Jeroen Kruter of INFECTA on Controlled Human Infection Models, as well as Annette von Delft and Peter Sjö of ASAP on the discovery of DNDi-6510!

asapdiscovery.org/forum/

Slide presented by Juan C. de la Torre: Impact of mammarenaviruses on human health: * Lassa virus (LASV): The underrated human pathogen of West Africa * South American hemorrhagic fever mammarenaviruses * The globally distributed prototypic mammarenaviruses LCMV as a neglected human pathogen * Recently discovered mammarenaviruses of unknown pathogenic potential for humans

Next up in today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Juan C. de la Torre of CAMPP @scripps.edu talking about antiviral discovery for mammarenaviruses.

asapdiscovery.org/forum

Warren Thompson presenting a slide showing the Diamond Light Source XChem facility capabilities for accelerated Design-Make-Test-Analyze cycles, including collaborative data dissemination, cloud-based digitised chemistry, high throughput automated beamline, and the creation of AI-data sources for predicting ligand binding for drug discovery.

First up in today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Warren Thompson ASAP @diamondlightsource.bsky.social showing automated fragment progression capabilities that Diamond Light Source users will soon be able to access!

asapdiscovery.org/forum/
www.diamond.ac.uk/Instruments/...

Join today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum at 11A ET to hear Warren Thompson (‪ASAP @diamondlightsource.bsky.social‬) discuss robotic fragment progression and Juan Carlos de la Torre (‪CAMPP
@scripps.edu‬) present strategies to combat human mammarenaviruses:
asapdiscovery.org/forum/

ASAP is incredibly proud to help pioneer new ways of making medicines globally affordable and accessible for all.

ASAP:OpenADMET:Polaris Blind Challenge Participant Showcase | Hugo MacDermott-Opeskin ASAPDiscovery, Polaris - Benchmarks for methods that matter and OpenADMET  are hosting a session for some of the top performers from our recently concluded blind challenge to showcase their methods! ...

ASAP, OpenADMET (@openadmet.bsky.social), and Polaris Hub (@polarishub.io) are hosting a virtual meeting on Wed 30 Apr to learn from top performers in our recently concluded blind modeling challenge.

To join or learn more about these efforts, check out:
www.linkedin.com/feed/update/...

This Wed 16 Apr at 11.00A ET, the Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum features talks on Dengue antiviral discovery and development from Xuping Xie (@utmbhealth.bsky.social) and Darlene Chen (@novartis.bsky.social) of the UNAPP AViDD!

asapdiscovery.org/forum

Massive credit to all members of @asapdiscovery.bsky.social :- drug discovery is a massive team sport. Especially the chemists at Enamine working through the war.

Opinion: How patents can serve the common good We want wide, fast, and affordable access for our new antiviral. It might sound counterintuitive, but a patent will help us do that

ASAP lead med chemist Ed Griffen (@griffen-ed.bsky.social) and @dndi.org Access Leader Pascale Boulet explain how ASAP is using patents to serve the common good by enabling globally equitable and affordable access to medicines in this feature in @cenmag.bsky.social:
cen.acs.org/pharmaceutic...

📢Important announcement! Today, the @asapdiscovery.bsky.social consortium disclosed the structure of our preclinical candidate, ASAP-0017445, a promising broad-spectrum antiviral with potent activity against SARS-CoV2 and other viruses belonging to the same family. (1/10)

Exciting news! The structure of the new MERS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 oral antiviral developed by the ASAP Discovery consortium has been disclosed today. Read this thread for all the details:

If you're attending the American Chemical Society (ACS) meeting either physically or virtually, tune in to today's talk disclosing ASAP's new oral antiviral candidate aiming to help protect against future pandemics.

Three days to go until the unveiling of our MERS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 oral antiviral candidate for preclinical development!

✨Another symposium session reveal✨ Featuring Max Morgan and @griffen-ed.bsky.social, this session features speakers inventing and actively implementing new strategies that centre open science and collaboration to drive drug discovery! Register here: conscience.ca/symposium2025

5 weeks to go! 🚀
Dr @griffen-ed.bsky.social is presenting at the ACS Spring Meeting & Expo. Talk Title; “Discovery of non-peptidomimetic oral combined MERS and SARS-CoV-2 anti-virals." @asapdiscovery.bsky.social @acs.org #ACSSpring2025

Click to register 🔗 www.acs.org/meetings/acs...

5 weeks to go🚀

@griffen-ed.bsky.social is presenting at the @conscience-network.bsky.social Symposium. Talk Title; "Balancing Open Science and Intellectual Property to Discover and Develop Medicines” @asapdiscovery.bsky.social

Register now: conscience.ca/symposium202...

ACS talk 4181593 - Discovery of non-peptidomimetic oral combined MERS and SARS-CoV-2 anti-virals Presented by Ed Griffen Part of the session "Developing Countermeasures for Viruses of Pandemic Potential" Room: Digital Session (Digital Meeting) Overview: The COVID-19 pandemic was a stark reminder that a barren global antiviral pipeline has grave humanitarian consequences. Pandemics could be prevented, in principle, by accessible, easily deployable broad-spectrum oral antivirals. Here we report the discovery of a family non-peptidomimetic spirolactams that target critical pathogenic coronaviridae including SARS-CoV-2 and MERS-CoV. As part of the ASAP AViDD centre(www.asapdiscovery.org) we expanded the work of the COVID Moonshot's drug discovery campaign targeting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease to deliver orally active compounds with promising in vivo profiles. Using a combination of active learning based medicinal chemistry, alchemical free energy calculations and structure-based design we were able to extend the coronavirus spectrum and optimise the ADMET properties of the series leading to the first public disclosure of the preclinical candidate.

Lead medicinal chemist Ed Griffen (@griffen-ed.bsky.social) will be disclosing the new ASAP MERS-CoV/SARS-CoV-2 oral antiviral at @acs.org on Tue 25 Mar! Tune in to this virtual session to hear about its discovery and development!

acs.digitellinc.com/live/34/sess...

Jinyue Ju presenting his titles slide: Discovery and Optimization of RNA Synthesis Inhibitors for Coronavirus and other Viruses of Pandemic Potential Jingyue Ju Departments of Chemical Engineering & Molecular Pharmacology and Therapeutics Center for Genome Technology & Biomolecular Engineering Columbia University

Next up for our Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum Jingyue Ju (Columbia University) of the Metropolitan AntiViral Drug Accelerator (MAVDA), discussing inhibitors of RNA synthesis for coronaviruses and other viruses of pandemic potential.

Check out his talk here:
openantivirals.org

Tem Morrison presents a slide illustrating debilitating effects of Chikungunya infection: * Clinical disease---it's all in the name chikungunya: "that which bends up" o'nyong-nyong: "painful weakening of the joints" * Three clinical stages (CHIKV) Acute (1-3 weeks) * Sudden fever, arthralgia, arthritis, rash * Wrists, angles, phalanges (commonly up to 16 joints) * Atypical presentations occur but are rare (0.5%) Post-acute (3 weeks - 3 months) * Persistent joint pain, arthritis, tenosynovitis * >50% of patients Chronic (>3 months) * Similar to post-acute stage * 10-50% of patients; recent meta-analysis of 60 studies across 38 countries estimates 51% On the right is an illustration of which joints are affected by acute and chronic chikungunya infections, as well as photos of hands with severely inflamed, bent joints.

Tem Morrison (University of Colorado School of Medicine) is up next in this month's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum, discussing the debilitating effects of Chikungunya virus (CHIKV) and the high need for antivirals.

Tune in now, or watch his presentation later:
openantivirals.org

Our team is having fun trying out the binding pose challenge! Check it out below, the organisers have done a great job making the data easy to access and understand!

⚡ The intermediate leaderboard for the antiviral challenge is now live!

👀 See how you placed: antiviral.polarishub.io

The challenge officially ends on March 10th, but there's one last leaderboard update before the final results.

Submit before midnight on Feb 26th! polarishub.io/competitions

Margaret Kielan presents her first slide: Antiviral Countermeasures Development Center (AC/DC) Project 2: Development of Antivirals against Alphaviruses Three-part interactive team, groups of: Margaret Kielian, Albert Einste College of Medicine, NY Andres Merits, University of Tartu, Estonia Tem MOrrison, University of Colorado School of Medicine, CO

This month's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum kicks off with Margaret Kielian (@einsteinmededu.bsky.social), part of the Antiviral Countermeasures Development Center (AC/DC AViDD), focusing on developing antivirals to alphaviruses!

Join now, or watch later:
openantivirals.org

Charles Craik presenting his title slide, "Structure-based discovery of highly bioavailable, covalent, broad-specftrum coronavirus-Mpro inhibitors with potent in vivo efficacy"

Next up at the Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Charles Craik (UCSF QCRG AViDD Center) talking about the discovery of broad-spectrum coronavirus Mpro inhibitors!

openantivirals.org

Sara Cherry introduces her title slide, "Antiviral Discovery Pipeline: Emerging and Re-Emerging Viruses"

First up in today's Antiviral Drug Discovery Open Science Forum is Sara Cherry, who works with both CAMPP and READDI-AC AViDD Centers to discover antivirals for emerging RNA viruses!

openantivirals.org