Researchers are ramping up production of a promising drug that has proven effective in obliterating SARS-CoV in cellular cultures.
Researchers are ramping up production of a promising drug that has proven effective in obliterating SARS-CoV in cellular cultures. The team hopes that the drug might also be effective in the fight against SARS’s close genetic cousin, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19).
Led by Northwestern University and ShanghaiTech University, the team has produced the promising molecule, called valinomycin, in a cell-free system. With this approach, they increased production yields more than 5,000 times in just a few rapid design cycles, achieving higher concentrations of the molecule than achieved previously in cells.
“Because we use cell-free systems, we can optimize production faster than in cells to further increase yields,” said Northwestern’s Michael Jewett, who co-led the study. “For example, pathway optimization cycles take days rather than weeks or months, and this speed could be ever so important when dealing with a pandemic like the coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak.”
The research was published online recently in the journal Metabolic Engineering and will appear in the July 2020 print issue.
Read more at Northwestern University
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