Computer Scientists Contribute to COVID-19 Drug Development Via Network Analysis
Professors Mark Crovella (CS, Bioinformatics) and Simon Kasif (BME, CS, Bioinformatics) are working with multiple other CS researchers in the US (including researchers from Virginia Tech, Microsoft Research, and UCLA). Co-developing a machine learning methodology to analyze viral and human protein-protein interaction networks, the researchers have advanced our understanding of the biological processes affected by SARS-CoV-2 and the human cells it infects.
This computational analysis has also produced numerous novel predictions of the potential of nodes in the network that can be targeted by repositioning existing safe drugs to inhibit the circuitry used by the virus to replicate and infect human cells. With this work, the researchers have showcased the promise of collaborations, public data sharing, and agile deployment of machine learning methods to develop therapeutics for emerging infectious diseases and clinical challenges more generally.