Dr. Niamh O’Boyle provides an overview of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and discusses the drugs that are currently in use to treat COVID-19.

COVID-19 is a global pandemic caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus. There is a huge worldwide effort underway to discover vaccines and new drugs, and to repurpose old drugs to treat this disease.

In this Bruker webinar, Dr. Niamh O’Boyle will discuss the drugs that are currently being used to treat COVID-19: remdesivir, chloroquine and the combination of lopinavir/ritonavir. These drugs are being investigated as part of the World Health Organization’s ‘Solidarity’ international clinical trial. Remdesivir is an anti-viral drug with no other clinical use at present; lopinavir/ritonavir are used for treating HIV. Chloroquine and its related analogue hydroxychloroquine are anti-malarials discovered during one of the major global emergencies of the 20th century – World War II. After a brief introduction to the SARS-CoV-2 virus and the viral life cycle, Dr. O’Boyle will conclude with the structures and mechanisms of action of these drugs.

Presenters

Assistant Professor
Pharmacy Trinity College Dublin

Dr. Niamh O’Boyle is a qualified pharmacist and a member of the Pharmaceutical Society of Ireland. She received her BSc(Pharm) and PhD from Trinity College Dublin, and subsequently was awarded a postdoctoral scholarship at University of Göteborg in Sweden to investigate the allergenic activity of epoxides and epoxy resins. Niamh was awarded a Government of Ireland Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at the School of Biochemistry & Immunology, TCD, working on ‘Cancer, Tubulin and Free Radicals: New Therapy’. Following a period as assistant lecturer at the School of Chemical and Pharmaceutical Sciences at Dublin Institute of Technology, she was appointed as assistant professor at the School of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences at TCD in 2017.

Production Partner

Bruker Corporation

Bruker offers preclinical imaging solutions for a broad spectrum of application fields, such as cancer research, neuroimaging and cardiac disease.

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