AI Platform Creates ‘Cocktail’ of Therapeutic Peptides for Treatment of COVID-19

Nuritas (Dublin, Ireland), a biotechnology company, has received a grant from Partnership for Advanced Computing in Europe (PRACE) to identify therapeutic peptides through artificial intelligence (AI) and genomics for the treatment of patients with COVID-19.

Under the terms of the grant, Nuritas will employ its proprietary AI platform to identify peptides with antiviral properties as well as peptides with cytokine regulatory properties, with the goal of creating a therapeutic ‘peptide cocktail.’ If successful, this approach has the potential to slow or stop disease progression by both mitigating viral replication and modifying the cytokine-based inflammatory response known to drive respiratory damage in patients with COVID-19.

Nuritas employs its proprietary AI platform to interrogate vast quantities of peptides and quickly and accurately identify first-in-class therapeutics to address some of the most difficult drug discovery challenges. By leveraging the inherently high target specificity and low risk of immunogenicity that peptides possess, the company is creating therapeutics for a broad range of diseases. Proof-of concept antimicrobial data for NuriPep 1653, one of Nuritas’ patented peptides, was published in September 2019 in which an antimicrobial peptide identified within the proteome of the Pea plant was found to have bacteria-killing properties against a multidrug resistant clinical strain of Acinetobacter baumannii, a priority pathogen according to the World Health Organization. NuriPep 1653 was found be non-toxic and had a low propensity for inducing resistance as compared to a last-line antibiotic, colistin.

"Peptides are naturally suited to address infectious diseases, as they can disrupt protein-protein interactions. For example, if peptides were discovered to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 from interacting with cellular proteins, they could certainly help in our fight against COVID-19,” said Nigel Stevenson, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Viral Immunology at Trinity College Dublin who has been studying the effect of coronaviruses, SARS and MERS upon the anti-viral immune response for several years. "In addition, the super-computing strength, associated with artificial intelligence platforms, such as that utilized by Nuritas is fundamental in accelerating therapeutic peptide identification."

“COVID-19 is a devastating infectious disease with enormous unmet need to diminish viral replication while also tackling the underlying inflammatory response that if left unchecked can lead to lung damage and death,” said Nora Khaldi, Ph.D., Nuritas Founder and Chief Executive Officer. “It is obvious that more than one solution may be needed to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Nuritas team is eager to leverage our proprietary AI platform, which seamlessly integrates vast quantities of data with strong scientific capabilities, to identify therapeutic peptides with the potential to address two key drivers of disease progression.”

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