New drug compounds have been discovered that are claimed to be so potential in treating novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 said by researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine (UMSOM) and University of Maryland School of Pharmacy (UMSOP).

The compounds disrupt the functionality of a protein complex inside human cells which is critical for the replication and survival of the coronaviruses. By this discovery, it is expected to develop  a broad spectrum of antiviral drugs targeting viruses like influenza, Ebola and coronaviruses which is  published in the Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) journal.

Going into details of protein complex, it is called SKI complex which is a group of human proteins regulating various aspects involving normal functioning of a cell. Recently discovered that these proteins also help in replication of virus that infects the human cells.

According to Matthew Frieman, Associate Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at UMSOM, by disrupting the SKI complex keeps the virus not replicating (an important and initial molecular mechanism in virus reproduction) ultimately leading to the death of viruses. This has been done at Computer –Aided Drug Design Centre of School of Pharmacy and Centre for Biomolecular Therapeutics at UMSOM using computer modeling to identify a binding site on SKI complex where the newly identified compounds tend to bind.

These findings may lead to treating a broad number of deadly infectious diseases. In this regards, already approved drugs efficacy can also be measured against COVID which may be successful.