SARS-CoV-2

Virusurf (Collaboration with F. Reniers ULB, R. Snyders UMons and A. Op de Beeck ULB)

The COVID-19 pandemic strongly highlighted the vulnerability of human society to viruses. So far, the main strategies to fight viruses are most often: development of vaccines, development of antiviral drugs, using virucidal detergents on contaminated surfaces, using some physical barriers (masks, …), or developing social responses, such as the lock-down strategies. For some minor diseases, such as a cold, or throat infections, human populations even have decided to “live with that”, despite the economy cost generated by ill people staying at home. In this work, we aim at developing a complementary approach which targets viruses in their environment. As the persistence of viruses on surfaces represents a societal and health challenge, this project aims at developing an innovative virucidal multifunctional coating based on a combination of photo-oxidative and thermal active layers by plasma technologies. The study of the synergetic effect of both mechanisms is also one of our objective. The virucidal properties of the surfaces will be tested with several viral models by virology labs involved in this project. Such surfaces would in priority be of interest for outdoor surfaces such as the one of urban furniture’s or the outside door of building, in other words, surfaces that are often touched by many people.

Identification of new inhibitors of coronavirus replication (Collaboration with G. Herbein UFC)

A novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, emerged in China at the end of 2019 causing a large global outbreak. As treatments are of the utmost importance, the repurpusing of existing drugs showing a broad anti-coronavirus activity embody a rich and rapid drug discovery landscape, where candidate drug compounds could be identified and optimized. To this end, we are testing chemical compounds for their ability to reduce HCoV-229E replication, another member of the coronavirus family. These compounds are then tested for their antiviral propreties against and SARS-CoV2 replication.