Fragment-based drug discovery (XChem) allowed small chemical fragments to be soaked into potential drug targets. A range of synchrotron and electron-based imaging techniques were exploited to visualise the individual components and the life cycle of the virus over a wide range of length scales.
You can download information packs about the XChem research below:
From the start of the pandemic, scientific research on the SARS-CoV-2 virus was of the highest priority for Diamond. A wide range of Covid-19 related projects took place on several beamlines and instruments. These ranged from production of protein samples to supporting research on the basic components of the virus for the purpose of developing therapies.
The aim was to share any and all research as quickly as possible. In order to do this, Diamond did not follow the usual research pathway of waiting for the publication of papers in peer-reviewed journals. The findings were shared and the doors were open to any researchers who required instrument time for projects directly related to SARS-CoV-2 viral proteins.
Covid Moonshot was an open-science project started in 2020 with the aim to develop a safe, globally accessible and affordable antiviral pill for Covid-19
The project started as a spontaneous virtual collaboration when a group of scientists, academics, pharmaceutical research teams, and students began a worldwide, Twitter-fuelled race to identify new molecules that could block SARS-CoV-2 infection.
Thanks to this unprecedented collaboration, rapid progress was made and the team is working towards identifying pre-clinical candidate drug molecules by end of 2021 – compounds that will be simple to manufacture in the form of tablets and which will exert an anti-viral effect via potent inhibition of the main protease (MPro) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The project is now in the more capital-intensive phase - tweaking, optimising and testing these drug molecules to develop them into a safe treatment.
XChem Fragment-based screening is well-established as a powerful approach to early drug (lead) discovery. Of the many suitable biophysical techniques, X-ray crystallography was one of the first to be used and was the most directly informative. The full X-ray screening experiment was implemented as a highly streamlined process, allowing up to 1,000 compounds to be screened individually in less than a week (including 36 hours of unattended beamtime).
Biological Cryo-Imaging Group brings together dedicated facilities for X-ray, light and electron microscopy at Diamond. The bending magnet beamline B24 is the source of X-rays for the full field cryo-transmission X-ray microscope dedicated to biological X-ray imaging and the beamline has also established a cryo super resolution fluorescence microscopy facility and eBIC, the national centre for cryo-electron microscopy.
Macromolecular Crystallography (MX) reveals the shape and arrangement of biological molecules at atomic resolution, knowledge of which provides a highly accurate insight into function. This can be combined with complementary information from many other techniques alongside lab-based investigations to reveal the broader picture of molecular
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