October 23, 2020
Bulletin interne de l'Institut Pasteur
Team of international scientists identify common vulnerabilities across Sars-CoV-2, Sars-CoV-1 and MERS coronaviruses
In a study published online in Science, an international team of almost 200 researchers from 14 leading institutions in six countries, including France with the Institut Pasteur and CNRS, studied the three lethal coronaviruses SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV in order to identify commonly hijacked cellular pathways and detect promising targets for broad coronavirus inhibition. In addition, using the molecular insights gained from this multidisciplinary, systematic study of coronaviruses, the group performed an analysis of medical records of approximately 740,000 patients with SARS-CoV-2 that altered clinical outcomes in these patients to uncover approved therapeutics with potential for rapid deployment. These results demonstrate how molecular information can be translated into real-world implications for the treatment of COVID-19, an approach that can ultimately be applied to other diseases in the future.