Quercus Molecular Design (QMD) , a UConn-related startup, has received a Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) award to develop inhibitors that block Herpes Simplex Virus (HSV) proteins used in reproduction of the virus.
While there are no cures for the various forms of herpes, antiviral drugs do exist to curb its effects, but there is a constant search for new remedies.
Among the researchers searching for answers is UConn Health biologist Sandra Weller, who chairs UConn's molecular biology and biophysics department.
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Sandra Weller has devoted most of her career to learning how the ubiquitous herpes simplex virus replicates and infects people. She focused on this common pathogen because of its widespread impact - it infects two-thirds of the world's population - and because of its painful symptoms, which can range in severity from bothersome to life-threatening. But in the past year, she has shifted her focus to another member of the herpes virus family, cytomeglovirus, which has a much greater immediate patient need and stromger commercial potential. With support from a drug diiscovery consortium comprising, UConn, UConn Health, and Yale University, Weller is now thinking like an entrepreneur to more quickly advance her scientific discoveries. |
UConn medicinal chemists have developed experimental antibiotics that kill MRSA, a common and often deadly bacteria that causes skin, lung, and heart infections. The success is due to their strategy, which found a weakness and exploited it in a way that bacteria should have trouble countering, the researchs report in the Dec. 22 issue of Cell Chemical Biology.
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Vince Racaniello of the This Week in Virology podcast interviews Sandra Weller, PhD, about her career and professional experience in the field of virology. Weller's laboratory uses genetic, biochemical, biophysical, structural and molecular approaches to elucidate mechanisms of synthesis, maturation and cleavage and packaging of viral genomes One of the lab's goal is to identify antiviral targets which can be exploited. - click on photo left to watch. |
Professor Dennis Wright discusses how he teamed up with pharma companies to create antibiotics that combat hard-to-kill bacteria that cause potentially deadly infections.
At any given time, dozens of research scientists at UConn and Yale, and at other Connecticut universities, are investigating and churning out a myriad of ideas that could someday improve health outcomes for millions worldwide.
Dr. Dennis Wright, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Amy Anderson, Professor of Medicinal Chemistry and Head, Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences of UConn, are providing assistance to lead investigator, Dr. Mark Plummer, from Yale's Center for Molecular Biology in a truly ocllaborative, cross-university project.
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What my research team hopes to make possible is a new therapy to treat a ubiquitous and formidable foe - the herpes simplex virus. There has been an epic evolutionary battle being waged between viruses and humans for millions of years. Herpes simplex is one of the nastiest and most common viruses that infect humans. It's found in over two-thirds of the world's population, and is responsible for oral, genital, and sight-threatening eye infections in adults and severe birth defects in infected newborns. |