Development and Evaluation of SARS-CoV-2 RNA Polymerase Inhibitors
Coronaviruses (CoV) can cause severe human respiratory diseases, which is documented by three major outbreaks over the past 17 years: SARS-CoV in 2003, MERS-CoV in 2012, and currently SARS-CoV-2. In response to the current COVID‑19 outbreak caused by SARS-CoV-2, we propose to develop novel tools to discover, develop and evaluate inhibitors of the viral polymerase. The polymerase is an enzyme that is essentially required for the propagation of SARS-CoV-2, which makes it an attractive target for therapeutic intervention strategies.