Could this Molecule be ‘Checkmate’ for Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2?

A team at UCSF and Gladstone Institutes that includes School of Pharmacy researchers has developed new drug candidates showing great promise against the virus that causes COVID-19 and potentially other coronaviruses that could cause future pandemics. 

The work was funded by a grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to prepare for the next coronavirus epidemic — work that pharmaceutical companies have largely abandoned. But the grant to UCSF has since been terminated, and the group’s antiviral drug candidates face an uncertain future. 

“In three years, we’ve moved as fast as a pharmaceutical company would have, from start to finish, developing drug candidates against a totally new pathogen,” said Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry Professor Charles Craik, PhD, a co-corresponding author of the paper that appeared April 23, 2025, in Science Advances. 

Top row: Nevan Krogan, PhD; Adam Renslo, PhD; Bottom row: Brian Shoichet, PhD, Kliment Verba, PhD

For the project that led to the new SARS-CoV-2 drug candidates, Craik, who had experience designing drugs against HIV, partnered with the UCSF labs of Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry professors Brian Shoichet, PhD, and Adam Renslo, PhD; Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology Assistant Professor Kliment Verba, PhD; and Department of Bioengineering and Therapeutic Sciences professor Nevan Krogan, PhD, who is also director of the Quantitative Biosciences Institute (QBI), as well as Department of Medicine Professor Melanie Ott, MD, PhD, who is a senior investigator with the Gladstone Institute of Virology and Immunology. 

“These compounds could inhibit coronaviruses in general, giving us a head start against the next pandemic,” Craik said. “We need to get them across the finish line and into clinical trials.” 

More 

• Could this Molecule be ‘Checkmate’ for Coronaviruses like SARS-CoV-2?  

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