Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology

The Korean Society for Microbiology and Biotechnology (한국미생물·생명공학회)
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COVID-19 Drug Development

  • Received : 2021.10.19
  • Accepted : 2021.11.29
  • Published : 2022.01.28
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Abstract

Diagnostics, vaccines, and drugs are indispensable tools and control measures employed to overcome infectious diseases such as coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Diagnostic tools based on RT-PCR were developed early in the COVID-19 pandemic and were urgently required for quarantine (testing, tracing and isolation). Vaccines such as mRNA vaccines and virus-vectored vaccines were also successfully developed using new platform technologies within one year after identifying severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) as the causative agent of COVID-19. Drug development has been conducted in various ways including drug repurposing, convalescent plasma therapy, and monoclonal antibody development. Among the above efforts, this review examines COVID-19 drug development along with the related and upcoming challenges.

Keywords

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) grant funded by the Korean government (MSIT) (NRF-2017M3A9G6068245).

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