University researchers boosted by six-figure antidote funding

Dundee University has shared a six-figure funding boost to accelerate the quest for a potential Covid-19 antidote.

In a project funded by benefactors including Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Dundee and Glasgow universities have been given £225,000 to screen existing medical treatments in a bid to determine their potential effectiveness against SARSCOV-2, the virus which causes Covid-19.

The move has been funded by Covid-19 Therapeutics Accelerator, an initiative launched by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Wellcome, and Mastercard to speed up the response to the coronavirus.

The Dundee University Drug Discovery Unit (DDU) and researchers at the Mrcuniversity of Glasgow Centre for Virus Research (CVR) will work together to rapidly screen a large collection of existing approved medical treatments for other diseases.

They will also conduct research into whether any combination of the molecules may have ANTI-SARS-COV-2 potential when acting together against the virus.

As SARS-COV-2 is an emerging virus, there are currently no known effective medicines for patients who require treatment in hospital.

However, the team of Scottish-based scientists believe it may be possible to rapidly repurpose existing therapeutics to combat the Covid-19 pandemic.

Professor Paul Wyatt, head of the DDU, said: “This is an exciting opportunity to partner the virology expertise in the CVR, with the drug discovery expertise in the DDU, to seek to find new treatments for this destructive disease.”