After two years of pandemics, restrictions and infection control, it seems that we can finally look forward to a normal summer again. It is tempting to think that the corona is behind us. However, we can expect corona, and other viruses, to return from time to time. We can ask ourselves the question; What do we do next time there is a major outbreak? A research team at NTNU has been working diligently on this for the past six months. – We have created what we call a database, which will make it easier to find new treatment methods for treating viral infections, says Professor Magnar Bjørås. He and colleague Denis Kainov are two of the professors who have worked on this project. Reusing known medicines The database is based on being able to reuse medicines used to treat other diseases, such as cancer and HIV. It contains an algorithm that can pick out the best active ingredients against various viruses. The researchers have studied around 11,000 active substances, and are focusing on the use of combination therapy. This means that you must be able to treat with several drugs at the same time, which can attack the virus in different ways. Bjørås says that this is certainly not the end of the project, and that they will continue with it in the future. They want to fill in new information as the database is used to develop new treatments. Photo: Oda Marie Rønning / news The solution can save billions of kroner, save more lives and can help us avoid closing society. – It may be the first strategy to reduce the extent of damage from a pandemic in the beginning, before we have possibly received a vaccine that is effective against the virus, says Bjørås. The database is interactive and is openly available online. Bjørås says that it can save researchers a lot of time, and believes it is of great importance in the event of new virus outbreaks. – Researchers around the world, who are researching new medicines, can check their medicines for the treatment of viral infections up against this database, he says and elaborates: – If you have a medicine that is similar to something in the database, then there is information there about what kind of virus it works on and what it does not work on. Lack of medication for around 200 viral diseases Like corona, future outbreaks will probably have plenty of time to spread before a vaccine is in place. According to the researchers, we lack medication for around 200 viral diseases that can spread in humans. That is, when these viruses arrive, we have no drugs that can prevent it from spreading to society. – If there is a new virus or a new epidemic, how can the database be used? – Then we will use that database to look for viruses that are in the same family as the new virus. A virus will always belong to a family we know. Then we will go into the database and look at the information contained in the drugs that we see have worked against that virus.
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Researchers at NTNU can slow down the next pandemic – news Trøndelag
