Responding to the ongoing epidemic COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak, the FASTCURE consortium aims to rapidly identify, collect and verify chemical compounds and methods suitable for inhibiting SARS-CoV-2 (formerly known as 2019-nCoV) Mpro protease as a primary target. World-wide leading institutions active in bioinformatics, drug- screening and design supported by major European HPC facilities will be redundantly cross-linked with high-throughput experimental in-vitro and in-vivo validation methods comprising cell culture compound screening, X-ray and NMR complex determination to continuously evaluate potential compounds. The compounds we suggest will be verified and classified in terms of previously approved (repurposed), experimental and “novel” by our bioinformatics, cheminformatics, structural biological, pharmaceutical and medical advisory boards and all data produced will be open-access. Authorities, WHO and CDC will be immediately notified of the findings and dissemination of our findings to other consortia is implemented right from the start. The project is designed to permanently stay open to outside input contributed by any 3rd party. We will continuously screen all published data and integrate findings such as newly emerging, potentially evolved genomes, structural, medical and biochemical data. In the formation of the consortium, complementarity was stressed, however, we have ensured sufficient redundancy to be able to continue the project in case of an unexpected loss of personnel, computer or other resources, thereby also improving our chances of success. Dissemination is guaranteed by attached industrial partners with expertise in taking anti-viral substances all the way to market launch. The lessons-learned, the DMS and automised work-flows, from the genome to the drug candidates will be made available as a cloud-based, distributed global emergency response system to ensure an immediate and well-coordinated response to future outbreaks.
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