Computer simulator helps steer COVID-19 clinical trial toward promising treatment

The biophysics-based model from Dave and team simulated the disease on a molecular and cellular level so the trial team could screen potential treatments computationally long before they were given to participants. 

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The simulator suggested that the COVID-19 therapies most likely to be effective are those that disrupt the genome transcription and translation stage of a SARS-CoV-2 virus’ life cycle. The graph shows key life cycle stages from left to right, and is color-coded to indicate how many hours it takes to produce 1,000 virions. The three black regions are high-ranked targets, including metformin, a drug that reduces translation. Annotations of example therapeutics show approximately when they influence the virus.