Open Science Discovery of Potent Noncovalent SARS-CoV-2 Main Protease Inhibitors

We report the results of the COVID Moonshot, a fully open-science, crowdsourced, and structure-enabled drug discovery campaign targeting the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) main protease. We discovered a noncovalent, nonpeptidic inhibitor scaffold with lead-like properties that is differentiated from current main protease inhibitors. Our approach leveraged crowdsourcing, machine learning, exascale molecular simulations, and high-throughput structural biology and chemistry. We generated a detailed map of the structural plasticity of the SARS-CoV-2 main protease, extensive structure-activity relationships for multiple chemotypes, and a wealth of biochemical activity data. All compound designs (>18,000 designs), crystallographic data (>490 ligand-bound x-ray structures), assay data (>10,000 measurements), and synthesized molecules (>2400 compounds) for this campaign were shared rapidly and openly, creating a rich, open, and intellectual property-free knowledge base for future anticoronavirus drug discovery.

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