Partners

The consortium partners are among the leaders in Europe in their respective professional fields or industries. These research institutions, universities, organizations, and companies have the complementary knowledge, experience, and infrastructure required for the successful implementation of the project.

 

LUMC

The LUMC molecular virology team is specialized in studies on the molecular biology and evolution of +RNA viruses, with a special focus on corona-, alpha-, and flaviviruses. Basic knowledge and developed technologies are applied to the development of novel antiviral drug approaches. Prof. Eric Snijder of LUMC is the PANVIPREP coordinator. LUMC leads WP1 and WP5, and contributes to hit validation, (cross)resistance studies, reverse genetics and mode-of-action studies, biochemical assays, and in vivo proof-of-concept studies.

AMU 

AMU leads WP4 and drive the structural and functional viral target characterisation essential for rapidly assessing inhibition properties in hit-to-lead development. AMU will manage data in an Enzyme BioBank of general interest beyond the consortium. AMU will organise a list and repository of prioritised viral targets to determine MoA of hits from internal and external sources.

KUL

KU Leuven leads WP2 and WP3. The laboratory of virology www.antivirals.be has a long-standing expertise in antiviral drug discovery, in particular against neglected and emerging viruses. The team’s expertise ranges from high-throughput phenotypic screens, hit/lead optimization, and reverse genetics, to identifying molecular mechanisms of action and assessing efficacy in animal infection models. CISTIM will provide hit matter from HTS performed outside this consortium, including novel hit compounds and prioritised and deprioritised hit series. Delivers organic and medicinal chemistry for hit-to-lead development and collaborates with virologists to optimise hits to early leads. Know-how and methods associated with computational approaches, e.g., ligand-based virtual screenings, ML-driven hit identification and structure-based studies.

UU

UU contributes its proprietary knowledge on the proteins of coronaviruses and enteroviruses. It includes single-particle cryo-electron microscopy in conjunction with biochemical and molecular virology experiments.

IVI

IVI leads WP6 and provides its experimental systems (different viruses/virus families, cell culture models, primary airway cultures, in vivo models) for assessing hits and contributing to MOA and inhibitor studies in vivo. It includes its reverse genetics platform to generate attenuated viruses.

Uzl

UzL provides structure-based drug design (SBDD) to identify potential inhibitors for target proteases using methods implemented in structural biology (protein crystallography, cryoEM, fragment screening design, etc.).

HZI

HZI provides design of PROTACs as well as direct-acting antivirals. Moreover, HZI will contribute to ADME and PK studies and PK modelling to reduce animal experimentation and accelerate antiviral drug development.

Janssen

Janssen provides deprioritised hits explored in the CARE project. As a partner in AI/ML model development, Janssen will work on hit enrichment. Janssen can carry out primary cell experiments (ALI cultures) and in vivo hamster studies. As a commercial partner, Janssen will be key in driving post-project drug development.

VBS

VBS provides a standardized model based on primary human airway cells to evaluate hits/leads against highly pathogenic Nipah and Hendra viruses (BSL-4 laboratory). VBS will evaluate compounds against select agent viruses in cell culture assays and contribute to identifying drug targets.

UCTP

UCTP provides its expertise in computer-aided drug design for the identification of new antiviral hits, as well as supporting the hit-to-lead and lead optimisation stages. UCTP will also support medicinal chemistry and synthesising novel antivirals, including PROTAC derivatives.

CSIC

CSIC provides medicinal chemistry expertise by combining computational and chemical tools to improve identified hits. Also contributes with a nanoparticle-based drug-delivery approach to reach the CNS through a nose-to-brain (N-to-B) delivery strategy.

USB

USB provides target protease purification, crystallographic and in-silico modelling studies with selected inhibitors. Other structural biology methods (cryo EM, etc.) will also be implemented.

Zafiro

Zafiro is an international consultancy SME with decade-long consulting, marketing-communication and project management experiences in R&I projects.

EPITHELIX

Epithelix will provide advanced and standardised primary epithelial cell models and know-how to BSL-3 and -4 partner labs. Epithelix will evaluate antiviral efficacy and non-toxicity using its human tissue models at BSL-2 level.