De Novo Design of Minibinder Antagonists for COVID-19 and Future Pandemics

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PROJECT SUMMARY One of the most pressing public health priorities for the COVID-19 pandemic is the development of an effective and inexpensive therapeutic. The long-term goal of this proposal is to develop such COVID-19 treatments, as well as the methods needed to rapidly create such molecules as soon as any new pathogen is identified. The central hypothesis is that computational design can be used to quickly create proteins with potent antiviral activity and others that suppress “cytokine storms” associated with advanced infection. Such countermeasures, if rapidly developed and deployed, could save millions of lives during an outbreak until vaccines are developed. The specific aims are to: 1) overcome current limitations in the discovery and development of protein therapeutics by creating methods for the de novo design of hyper-stable miniproteins that bind tightly to vulnerable binding sites on the SARS-CoV-2 Spike glycoprotein, including the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the ACE-2 cellular receptor and the fusion peptide region; 2) Enhance the avidity of such anti-Spike minibinders through genetic fusion of multiple copies, or through rational design of higher-order oligomers to create drug compounds that are less prone to viral mutagenic escape; 3) Apply the same minibinder design pipeline to create cytokine receptor antagonists of key cytokines IL-6 and IL-1β likely involved in acute respiratory distress syndrome (ADRS) associated with COVID-19 mortality; 4) Assess the efficacy of antiviral and anti-interleukin minibinders by several routes of delivery (intravenous, intranasal and subcutaneous) in rodent models of COVID-19 and assess immunogenicity in order to identify those designs best suited for further preclinical development. As proof of principle, the first anti-Spike minibinders have already been designed, were found to bind to SARS-CoV-2 Spike RBD, and were found to neutralize live virus with activities rivaling the most potent known antibodies. This proposal is innovative because it seeks to apply powerful emerging methods in the computational design of new protein therapeutics to the COVID-19 pandemic. The proposal is significant because it would be the first example of computational protein design yielding potent and entirely de novo antiviral and anti-inflammatory therapeutics for an active pandemic. Ultimately, rapid minibinder design methods have the potential to generate treatments for future pandemics, as well as for many other common and neglected diseases and conditions.