CHICAGO _ More than a decade ago, a center was founded at Northwestern University as a rapid-response operation against infectious disease.
But its work was sporadic _ a boom when epidemics like MERS hit, a bust when they were under control. Some promising drugs never made it out of the laboratory as funding waned.
Now, researchers with the Center for Structural Genomics of Infectious Diseases are rushing to find an effective treatment for COVID-19, making up for lost time against a disease that has already killed more than 315,000 people around the world, including about 90,000 in the United States.
And they hope they'll be ready for whatever comes next.
"I think we're making substantial strides," said Karla Satchell, director of the center who is a professor of microbiology-immunology at Northwestern's Feinberg School of Medicine. "Drug discovery is a slow process, and our hope is that we can do something in time to help this round of the pandemic. But at the very least, we can do enough that this won't happen again."
One researcher funded through the center is working on modifying a drug originally approved to treat hepatitis C. It isn't on the market anymore because it was replaced by more efficient therapies, but it could be adjusted fairly quickly to disrupt how the coronavirus replicates itself.
Others at the center, which coordinates research at eight universities, are reviewing past work on drugs that showed potential against the SARS epidemic in 2002 and the MERS outbreak in 2012. Both diseases are also caused by coronaviruses.
At some point, though, scientists at the center and across the country will need to focus on future threats and break new ground.
"You can make a lot of movement fast, based on what you know," Satchell said. "But at some point, you hit a wall where you have to discover new things."
