READDI, not Reactive
Thanks to the power of convergent science at Carolina, we'll be better prepared for the next pandemic.
Thanks to the power of convergent science at Carolina, we'll be better prepared for the next pandemic.
hen the World Health Organization declared SARS-CoV-2 a global pandemic in March of 2020, people were not only unprepared, but shocked. UNC researchers Ralph Baric, Mark Heise, and Nat Moorman were not among them.
Soon after the outbreak was considered a pandemic, collaborators Baric, Heise, and Moorman met up to discuss the future.
The 21st century has seen eight epidemics and pandemics from zoonotic viruses — pathogens that jump from non-human animals to humans — including SARS, MERS, Zika, Ebola, and of course, SARS-CoV-2. Even so, seeing the potential for an outbreak is very different from being prepared for one.
“Most everyone agreed that the basic science that had been done between 2003 and 2019 indicated that the zoonotic pool was filled with virus strains poised to cause human disease. It was just a matter of time,” says Baric, a professor of microbiology, immunology, and epidemiology.
In early 2020, this fear became a reality.
“We were kind of just lamenting the fact that here we were again: another pandemic and no drugs ready to go. Nothing approved,” says Moorman, an associate professor of microbiology and immunology. “We knew we were going to have to go through this the same way we’d gone through every other pandemic.”
This frustration was the impetus for them to reevaluate the typical approach, and the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI) seeks to do that. This collaboration between scientists at the UNC School of Medicine, the UNC Eshelman School of Pharmacy, and the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health was created to not only combat SARS-Cov-2, but also future viral outbreaks.