Computers to be used to develop blueprint for influenza drug
Researchers at the University of Bath have won a
Researchers at the University of Bath have won a £261,000 grant to use state-of-the-art computer technology to produce a blueprint of a designer drug that could stop influenza and various other diseases from replicating in humans. The announcement of the grant comes at a time when concerns are rising over an influenza pandemic.
Professor Ian Williams, of the department of chemistry, will begin work in April on the three-year project that could help pharmaceutical companies develop an inhibitor to stop the development of the disease. The drug would be chemically very similar to part of the protective coating around the cells in the throat that the flu virus first attacks when a person becomes infected.
By examining the behaviour of atoms of the influenza virus that attack cells and atoms of the throat cells that are attacked, and then modelling the way these atoms behave in highly complex interactions, it is hoped that the atomic structure of a suitable drug can be worked out. Using computer modelling for drug design promises to be much more efficient than the normal trial and error procedure that can take many years.
Professor Williams and his colleague Dr Gus Ruggiero will use part of the grant from the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council to buy computers with a combined power many times that of the most advanced desktop machines. This will be the first time the software, developed in Germany, will have been used in the UK, and it will allow accurate modelling of the behaviour of tens of thousands of atoms.
'If we are successful, we will have taken important steps in finding a new way of fighting influenza and other diseases,' said Professor Williams. 'It will then be down to the pharmaceutical companies to take our blueprint and turn it into a drug.'
Professor Williams said that his work is a more sophisticated development from similar modelling which produced two anti-influenza drugs, Relenza and Tamiflu, whose effectiveness is limited.