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P14014
Addressing the Tractability of Difficult Viral Targets Approaches Toward the Discovery of Antivirals for Lethal RNA Viruses that Require Biocontainment
Presenter Colleen Jonsson, Southern Research Institute, USA
Additional Authors: Dong-Hoon Chung, Marintha Heil, Qianjun Li, Clinton Maddox, William Severson, Lynn Rassumussen, E. Lucile White

Globally, we have experienced a dramatic increase in emerging pathogens, which have resulted in serious public health and economic impact at regional and/or global levels1,2. Countermeasures for the treatment of the diseases these pathogens inflict are greatly needed. Unfortunately, of the 95 antiviral drugs on the market, none show efficacy for the treatment of the majority of these emerging viruses. Emerging viral illnesses present a number of unique challenges in drug discovery efforts, including limited reagents for their detection, access to viral strains, containment requirements, government regulations, and the availability of trained scientists. In the last decade, resources have become available for the development of facilities to study these pathogens, and importantly, toward the development of therapeutics for the treatment of the diseases they inflict. In this presentation, we will present our current technical approaches and special considerations that we have taken in our drug discovery program for those pathogens that require BSL2 or3 containment. We will also present an overview of results from our drug discovery program in hantaviruses, SARS CoV, influenza viruses (low and high pathogenic strains), Blue Tongue virus, respiratory syncytial virus and West Nile virus.