The world's fastest supercomputer, Fugaku, has identified dozens of drug candidates for the potential treatment of the novel coronavirus. RIKEN research institute and Kyoto University made the announcement Friday. The candidates were selected from a pool of over 2,000 existing drugs.
The chosen candidates have the potential to curb viral growth within cells. The research team plans to cooperate with pharmaceutical companies and additional researchers to study treatment methods.
Kyoto University Prof. Yasushi Okuno, deputy program director at RIKEN, and his team had Fugaku calculate whether 2,128 kinds of existing drugs -- including antiviral and anticancer drugs -- can bind to proteins that have a relation with viral growth and block their activities. As a result, dozens of drugs proved promising.
Of them, 12 are being studied overseas by being administered to patients to see if they are effective treatments against the novel coronavirus. In addition to the study using Fugaku, RIKEN said it would also test the effectiveness of the drugs in experiments using cells.
Fugaku was jointly developed by Fujitsu Ltd. and its full-scale installation is scheduled for fiscal 2021. However, some of the nodes have already been put to use since April under five themes including the calculation of how breath droplets spread and the exploration of potential treatments for the novel coronavirus.
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