Summer of the Coronaverse

July 15, 2020

Students and faculty join a multi-institutional interdisciplinary research team to investigate the COVID-19 virus.

Xavier student Matthew Benedek joined Stephen Mills, Associate Professor of Chemistry to participate in a weeklong boot camp hosted by the Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine at Rutgers University. The goal is to bring together teams of interdisciplinary researchers with complementary skills and interests to investigate the virus. Carried out completely remotely, participants are interacting with experts and learning how to use various bioinformatics tools to answer pertinent research questions. All of the research is focusing on the SARS-CoV-2 main protease. The main protease is essential for viral activity and is a promising drug target. In other words, by understanding the differences in this protease resulting from the rapid evolution, we will be that much closer to developing an antiviral medicine to help COVID-19 patients.