Lessons for a future pandemic

“I think it’s very likely we’ll get to good drugs even quicker than we’ll get to a good vaccine,” says Peter Doherty, Nobel Prize winner, University of Melbourne Laureate Professor, patron and namesake of the Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity.

“What’s worked for HIV is what we call designer drugs,” Professor Doherty says. “Structural biologists design a chemical which will fit in to the really important part of that [virus] structure for binding to the cell, for instance. That would be a blocker, and that’s an effective drug.”

In terms of what we need to do to prepare for a future pandemic caused by an unknown virus, Professor Doherty highlights the work of CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.

“[CEPI] funded the research of Professor Paul Young and his group at the University of Queensland, who’ve developed the primary Australian COVID-19 vaccine candidate. They developed a platform technology called the protein clamp. When this new virus came along, they were just able to slot in those new virus genes and move down that road,” he says.

“So, I think we need an equivalent of the CEPI organisation that’s involved in developing drugs against all the major classes of virus that could be a potential threat to us.”

But Professor Doherty reminds us that COVID-19 isn’t the biggest threat facing humanity, “this is something we’ll be through in 12 to 18 months”, he says.

“The biggest threat facing humanity is clearly climate change and we all understand that if we’ve got any sense at all. I think, personally, that what should come out of this is we need to rethink some of the ways we do things.”

Episode recorded: April 22, 2020.

Interviewer: Dr Andi Horvath.

Producer, audio engineer, editor: Chris Hatzis.

Co-producers: Silvi Vann-Wall and Dr Andi Horvath.

Banner image: Shutterstock.