In search of a COVID-19 vaccine and therapeutics
Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
and the end of March 2020, there have been almost 1,500,000 cases of COVID-19 and
>90,000 deaths worldwide. There are currently no FDA-approved vaccines or small molecule
therapeutics for the treatment and prophylaxis of COVID-19, underscoring the need
for effective countermeasures to halt the growing pandemic. The presentation will
briefly review coronaviruses, their life cycle, and state-of-the art 
progress in the development of vaccines and immunotherapeutics, as well as the use
of repurposed drugs. Lastly, progress by our research group related to the discovery
of inhibitors of SARS-CoV-2 3CL protease, an enzyme essential for viral replication,
will also be discussed briefly.
Professor William Groutas received his B.S. (honors) degree in Chemistry from the American University of Beirut and his Ph.D. in Organic Chemistry from the University of Kentucky. Following completion of a postdoctoral fellowship in Bioorganic Chemistry at Cornell University, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire before moving to Wichita State University, where he is currently the WSU Foundation Distinguished Professor of Chemistry. His research interests lie in the general areas of medicinal chemistry, drug discovery and development, and mechanistic enzymology, with primary focus on the structure-based design of inhibitors of viral proteases of medical relevance (e.g., noroviruses, coronaviruses).