{"id":113086,"date":"2020-09-16T15:18:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-16T22:18:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/geometry-points-to-coronavirus-drug-target-candidates"},"modified":"2020-09-16T15:18:39","modified_gmt":"2020-09-16T22:18:39","slug":"geometry-points-to-coronavirus-drug-target-candidates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2020\/09\/geometry-points-to-coronavirus-drug-target-candidates","title":{"rendered":"Geometry Points to Coronavirus Drug Target Candidates"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/geometry-points-to-coronavirus-drug-target-candidates.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>When a virus invades your cells, it changes your body. But in the process, the pathogen changes its shape, too. A new mathematical model predicts the points on the virus that allow this shape-shifting to occur, revealing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.liebertpub.com\/doi\/full\/10.1089\/cmb.2020.0120\" target=\"_blank\">a new way to find potential drug and vaccine targets<\/a>. The unique math-based approach has already identified potential targets in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/tag\/The+Coronavirus+Outbreak\/\" target=\"_blank\">coronavirus that causes COVID-19<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Outlined in April in the <em>Journal of Computational Biology,<\/em> the strategy predicts <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/researchers-map-structure-of-coronavirus-spike-protein\/\" target=\"_blank\">protein sites on viruses<\/a> that stash energy\u2014important <a href=\"https:\/\/www.scientificamerican.com\/article\/three-ways-to-make-coronavirus-drugs-in-a-hurry1\/\" target=\"_blank\">spots that drugs could disable<\/a>. In a rare feat, the work proceeds from pure mathematics, says study author and mathematician Robert Penner of the Institute of Advanced Scientific Studies in France. \u201cThere\u2019s precious little pure math in biology,\u201d he adds. The paper\u2019s predictions face a long road before they can be verified experimentally, says John Yin, who studies viruses at the University of Wisconsin\u2013Madison and was not involved in the research. But he agrees that Penner\u2019s approach has potential. \u201cHe\u2019s coming at this from a mathematician\u2019s point of view\u2014but a very scientifically informed mathematician,\u201d Yin says. \u201cSo that\u2019s highly rare.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Penner\u2019s method takes advantage of the fact that certain viral proteins alter their shape dramatically when viruses breach cells, and this transformation depends on unstable features. (A stable protein site, by definition, resists change.) By identifying \u201chigh free energy sites\u201d\u2014areas on a viral protein that store lots of energy\u2014Penner realized he could spot likely \u201cspring\u201d points that mediate this change in shape. He calls such high-energy spots exotic sites. Finding them required some complex math.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When a virus invades your cells, it changes your body. But in the process, the pathogen changes its shape, too. A new mathematical model predicts the points on the virus that allow this shape-shifting to occur, revealing a new way to find potential drug and vaccine targets. The unique math-based approach has already identified potential [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":599,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,1523,2229],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-113086","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-computing","category-mathematics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113086","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/599"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=113086"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/113086\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=113086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=113086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=113086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}