WP1 - Drug discovery in phenotypic assays 

The SCORE project focuses on the development of coronavirus-specific therapeutics and will do so

● short-term, by developing combinations of repurposed drugs;

● mid-term, by expediting studies on compounds already in development;

● longer-term, by pursuing de novo discovery and development of inhibitors.

This multi-pace approach is warranted because it is unclear at the moment whether the current virus will spread to cause a full-blown pandemic and/or continue to circulate for a prolonged time. As exemplified by the prior SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV outbreaks, and the current SARS-CoV-2 epidemic, it is clearly only a matter of time until the next zoonotic coronavirus will appear on the world stage. Therefore, it is key to also invest in a longer-term effort with the purpose of developing novel, specific, and potent broad-spectrum inhibitors of coronavirus infection or replication.