In an effort to develop new antiviral drugs for COVID-19 and other diseases, a collaboration led by scientists at the Wertheim UF Scripps Institute has identified a possible new drug against COVID-19 virus.
In the process, the team devised a strong new platform to find drugs to fight many types of infectious diseases.
Writing to Journal of the American Chemical SocietyIn an online article published on Monday, October 6, 2025, scientists said they started looking for “drug pockets” in the constant structures of viral genetic material. Like the Keyholes, these pockets offer promising spaces to intervene with precise medication. The team then used systematic chemistry, computational and robotic methods of discovery of drugs to find perfect compounds capable of working like the keys.
Their refined and optimized compound, called Union 6, LED SARS-COV-2 viral proteins in incorrect, malfunction and eventually destroyed and removed from cells in laboratory tests. Specifically, their work could also benefit other viral diseases, said Matthew D. Disney, Ph.D., Professor of the Institute and President of the Department of Chemistry at the Institute of Biomedical Innovation and Technology at Herbert Wertheim UF Scripps.
“The method we have developed can be applied to any number of RNA -based viruses and have limited treatment options, including influenza, noirovation, Mers, Marburg, Ebola, Zika and others,” said Disney. “We’ve already started working on many of them.”
Disney associates included Arnab Chatterjee, Ph.D., Senior Vice President of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the Skaggs-Calibr Institute for researching national institutions of Lajolla, California and Ph.D.
This platform represents a transformative way of thinking about discovering medicines. It gave us a course map not only to design antivirals for the coronies, but to quickly expand this strategy to other high -priority RNA goals in all infectious diseases and beyond. “
Arnab Chatterjee, Ph.D., Higher Vice President
The co-authors were Sandra Kovachka, Ph.D., and Amirhossein Taghavi, Ph.D., of the Institute of Wertheim UF Scripps and Jielei Wang, a student graduate in Disney’s workshop.
The SARS-COV-2 virus is so tiny that it would need 1,000 of those invested from end to end to equal the width of a typical human wool. Still, its strings -like genome is packed with tricks infected with 27 proteins.
One of them, a mechanism called the frame -shift element, allows for effective use of tight viral real estate. Frameshifter looks like a lever and acts as a clutch of a 10 -speed bike engine or derailler. Causes the cessation of cell protein machines when reading the virus genome. It then forces the machines to shift the starting point of protein construction, thereby guiding the cell to assemble a brand new protein for copying the virus.
Disney has argued that this frame shift, maintained in the many variants of SARS-COV-2, would serve as an ideal target for a RNA-focused drug.
Until recently, RNA structures have been considered by scientists as particularly provocative drug goals. Disney’s team has long focused on finding RNA structures that are easily pharmacist, as well as technologies and complex libraries to achieve this goal, allowing them to make rapid progress.
In the new document, the Disney team used both computational and experimental approaches to find the right chemical detectors who would allow the team to map the Frameshift Pockets and Mutations. These methods included a Disney invented Disney is called Chem-Clip, or chemical intersection and attraction with attraction, useful for mapping pockets.
Further analysis and experimentation revealed that a well -known compound, Mirafloxacin, prevented the assembly of the frame shift element, though not optimal. The Robotic Discovery of a High Performance Union revealed eight relatively chemical scaffolding that could be committed to mapped structures in a similar way. Their antiviral action was confirmed through experiments in living cells infected with SARS-COV-2. They found that Union 6 had the optimal effect. In front, the team is developing strategies to enhance the power and effectiveness of Union 6.
The most enjoyable for this collaboration, Disney said, is that the team showed how the know -how and mixing technologies systematically produced a strong new way of attacking viral diseases that have RNA as their genetic basis.
“This strategy offers a guided and impartial way for the rational design of small RNA molecules,” said Disney, which is directing the Institute’s Center of the Institute, RNA: from biology to drug discovery. “By linking the know -how of deep structural biology to the possibilities of discovery of drugs, we accelerate the journey from basic RNA biology to potential drugs.”
Chanda, whose team conducted cellular tests said that this project also demonstrated the rapid work of high impact that was completed in the first three years of NIH’s antique discovery centers for Pandemic or Avidd pathogens.
“This project depicts exactly what Avidd was designed to do – promote the innovative strategies that expand the antiviral arsenal,” Chanda said. “Showing that RNA can systematically target drug molecules, the team has opened doors for drugs against many viruses, not just Sars-COV-2.”
Source:
Magazine report:
Kovachka, S., et al. (2025). Countdone detectors reveal a small molecule pockets in structured RNA and allow the design of a bioactive compound. Journal of the American Chemical Society. Doi.org/10.1021/jacs.5C11898
