Book Description

Massive experimental, computational, and clinical studies have been performed worldwide, and are still ongoing, to understand and characterize Covid-19 molecular basis and transmission mechanisms, to develop diagnostics and vaccines, and to search for small chemical drug candidates and therapeutic proteins and peptides. Impressive results have been obtained for transmission control and vaccines so far, but what is the status of the other therapeutic options? The crisis has exposed different types of weaknesses in biomedical research in many countries. What can we learn from this crisis in the field of drug discovery and development so as to emerge stronger? The Covid-19 crisis has revealed the strengths of modern drug discovery and vaccine development but also exposed different types of weaknesses that would need to be addressed to be better prepared for a possible next global health crisis. These challenges/weaknesses/obstacles are of very different nature and as such hard to tackle. For instance, in addition to the inherent challenging nature of the scientific discovery, some scientists have mentioned insufficient local/national coordination and observed a fragmented drug discovery research, others have underlined a lack of coordination between the academic system and the private sector, an inadequate international global coordination and cooperation, others highlighted insufficient infrastructures, inappropriate financial supports, limited discussions between the scientific community performing the research and the public health authorities, decision makers and the society, while some remarked insufficient education/training about drug discovery and development leading to confusion… The crisis also raised important scientific questions about the technologies that would need to be used during an emergency situation, combined, integrated, or developed so as to accelerate the identification of small molecule drug candidates and of therapeutic peptides/proteins.