Andrea explains how medicinal drugs are designed, why Aspirin helps against your headache and how the Task Force helps drug designers against COVID-19.
Andrea explains how medicinal drugs are designed, why Aspirin helps against your headache and how the Task Force helps drug designers against COVID-19.
The world holds its breath as the novel Coronavirus continues to spread across the world, bringing our lives to a halt. We have gathered a lot of knowledge about the virus but there are still many gaps to fill. The non-structural-protein 3 (nsp3) represents one of these gaps in our knowledge. As the largest protein encoded by the coronaviruses genome, untangling its structure and function poses a huge task.
What is the virus? Which molecular structures make up SARS-CoV-2? How can it infect other cells?
"I don't see how you could possibly describe a protein structure in a thousand words, but you can come a lot closer with one picture." - Jane Richardson
The development of new drugs is essential to contain the COVID-19 pandemic. One promising drug target is the 3C-like protease, also known as main protease or MPro.