indian institute of technology roorkee iit roorkee researchers have identified antiviral molecules that can be used effectively to treat covid19 infections the researchers identified three such antiviral molecules through drug repurposing computational and antiviral experimental studiesthe covid19 pandemic spurred both computational and experimental studies all over the world to understand the structure and nature of sarscov2 viral proteins and develop vaccines and cures for it one important branch of study is structurefunction studies to unravel the atomic structures of the virus and its proteins that constitute the virusthese studies have resulted in the availability of a protein data bank a repository of the structures of proteins and viruses this pdb databank is used by researchers globally for drug discovery the iit roorkee team is executing protein structurebased drugrepurposing research on sarscov2 molecules for clinical evaluation and eventual use as antiviral therapeuticsthe research team was led by professor shailly tomar department of biosciences and bioengineering iit roorkee speaking on the importance of such research professor kk pant director iit roorkee said such research into sarscov2 virus is critical not only to deal with covid19 pandemic but also prepare for any new variants and future pandemics as well this research can provide valuable inputs to the scientific community to understand such viruses and develop vaccinesthe iit roorkee team used the protein data bank to target and identify drug molecules for the covid19 virus they focused on discovering molecules that acted on a specific part of the viral proteins called the nucleotidebinding pockets nbps as the name suggests the nbp binds to the nucleotides the building blocks of rna and dna and help in the replication of the virus nbptargeting drugs are known and used for viral diseases such as hiv hepatitis b hepatitis c and herpes among othersthe team identified the six nbps using the atomic structures available in the protein data bank the team used a novel approach of multitargeting various virusspecific proteins using one drug instead of targeting only one virusspecific protein this novel multitargeting approach is expected to be therapeutically highly effective and is less likely to result in resistant variant strainsadditionally the team used the drug repurposing strategy for the discovery of new antisarscov2 molecules from already approved or existing drugs iit roorkee team using a drug repurposing approach discovered incb28060 which is a cancer drug darglitazone an antidiabetic molecule and columbianadin a natural phytochemical with antiinflammatory and anticancer effects against the covid19 virus