Open drug discovery for the Zika virus

Abstract

The Zika virus (ZIKV) outbreak in the Americas has caused global concern that we may be on the brink of a healthcare crisis. The lack of research on ZIKV in the over 60 years that we have known about it has left us with little in the way of starting points for drug discovery. Our response can build on previous efforts with virus outbreaks and lean heavily on work done on other flaviviruses such as dengue virus. We provide some suggestions of what might be possible and propose an open drug discovery effort that mobilizes global science efforts and provides leadership, which thus far has been lacking. We also provide a listing of potential resources and molecules that could be prioritized for testing as in vitro assays for ZIKV are developed. We propose also that in order to incentivize drug discovery, a neglected disease priority review voucher should be available to those who successfully develop an FDA approved treatment. Learning from the response to the ZIKV, the approaches to drug discovery used and the success and failures will be critical for future infectious disease outbreaks.

A Screen of FDA-Approved Drugs for Inhibitors of Zika Virus Infection

“…The identification of daptomycin as potentially useful to treat Zika patients highlights the power of unbiased screens. Therefore, while we wholeheartedly agree with Ekins et al in calling for an open drug discovery for ZIKV anti-virals, we do not favor the priority these authors give to screening known antivirals (Ekins et al, 2016). …”

Screening Bioactives Reveals Nanchangmycin as a Broad Spectrum Antiviral Active against Zika Virus

“…While a number of these drugs have been shown to have antiviral activity previously, many of these drugs have not been previously implicated as antivirals, including our most potent candidate nanchangmycin. Therefore, while we feel that there should indeed be a call for open drug discovery efforts for ZIKV, it may be too narrow to only focus on known antiviral drugs or known antiviral drug classes (Ekins et al, 2016). Indeed, our findings provide a rich resource for future studies on the host pathways required for infection, the specific pathways engaged in particular cell lineages as well as compounds that can be used as a starting point for therapeutic interventions.…”

Application of Computational Drug Discovery Techniques for Designing New Drugs against Zika Virus

“…This knowledge will open up the expansion towards enhanced therapeutic approaches in the eradication of the ZIKV. It is worth ending this Editorial by highlighting a very recent contribution by Ekins and co-workers [15].…”