Principal investigator: Juana Díez

Humanity faces an almost unlimited pool of viral threats. From these, RNA viruses constitute the biggest menace for both public and animal health. Their high replication rates and mutability facilitates their transmission from animal to humans, and vice versa, generating new viral variants that can be highly pathogenic. To handle and contain such upcoming and unpredictable outbreaks before they spread worldwide it is fundamental to develop either broad-spectrum antivirals that can be stockpiled or drug development platforms capable of rapidly producing specific antivirals. We have recently generated an alternative and stable RNA-based antiviral therapy strategy that addresses both needs (Technology transfer award, UPF; PCT/EP2021/067756). Our current objectives include to validate it at a pre-clinical level and to tackle additional viral families. Moreover, we collaborate within a European framework on the screening and determination of the mode-of action of drugs targeting viral proteins with a special interest in those with broad-spectrum activites.