Artificial intelligence (AI) drug discovery company Exscientia has expanded its ongoing anti-viral drugs partnership with the UK’s national synchrotron facility Diamond Light Source and University of Oxford across the Atlantic Ocean to include California-based Scripps Research’s Calibr and focus on Covid-19 research.
The UK-US partners will collaborate to screen most approved and investigational drugs against Covid-19 targets involved in viral replication and entry into human cells.
The prioritised targets include 3CL protease, the NSP12-NSP7-NSP8 RNA polymerase complex and the novel coronavirus’ SPIKE protein, which interacts with the human cell receptor ACE2 to gain entry into human cells.