[Interview] How COVID-19 Catalyzed AI-assisted Open Science Drug Discovery

Biopharma companies are now racing to find much-needed cures against SARS-CoV-2, a virus that caused the largest global pandemic of our time. One notable effort is the COVID Moonshot project, organized by an international consortium of scientists from academia, biotechs, contract research organizations (CROs), and pharma -- all working pro bono or via crowdfunding, philanthropy, and grants.

The aim of the project is to rapidly develop easily manufacturable antiviral drugs that can inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, which is believed to be an Achilles heel of the coronavirus. The project is managed by PostEra, a startup company that uses artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms to map routes for chemical synthesis to speed the drug-discovery process.

After the original crystallography on the SARS-CoV-2 main protease became available from Shanghai Tech University in China in January, researchers at the Diamond Light Source/XChem in Oxford and The Weizmann Institute in Israel performed a fragment screen to identify key entry points for molecular design. Later, PostEra initiated a COVID MoonShot project to crowdsource molecular design ideas from hundreds of scientists worldwide and apply artificial intelligence (AI) to prioritize ideas and find optimal synthesis routes. Chemical synthesis of the promising molecules is carried out by Enamine in Ukraine, Sai Life Sciences in India, and Wuxi in China, while Enamine also coordinates compounds logistics to various screening centers to check them for activity.

The COVID Moonshot is the first open-science drug design project of its kind, and it is an illustrative example of how the COVID-19 crisis stimulates companies to search for new ways to collaborate, using the power of collective thinking and crowdsourcing. Importantly, this project aims to establish a new paradigm for drug discovery, where society’s investment in health would be decoupled from the commercial interests of a single company.

To find out more about the COVID Moonshot project, latest progress, and the role of AI technology in this effort, I reached out to Aaron Morris, Co-founder and CEO at PostEra: