【April 21 – Lecture】Importance of Antivirals for the Management of COVID-19

Date: April 21, 2021 (Wednesday)
Time: 3 – 5 PM (GMT+8)
Registration: https://forms.gle/1KFLyTmVBQ17eLQt7

<<Lecture Information>>
The COVID-19 pandemic had caused over 74 million confirmed cases and more than 1.6 million related deaths around the world by the end of December 2020. However, there have been only a few drugs that were approved in certain areas and for special circumstances including use in conditional patients. More importantly, several vaccine candidates were only recently approved or authorized without being fully implemented worldwide, suggesting that we are yet to reach worldwide effective control of the current outbreak, making its uninhibited transmission a critical public health issue. Over the past year, several therapeutic drug candidates have been demonstrated to be ineffective in large clinical trials, while some other agents exhibited promising results in preliminary studies. Meanwhile, the investigation for the development of SARS-CoV-2-specific antivirals is underway. We invite Professor Enzo Tramontano from the Department of Life, Environmental and Drug Sciences of the University of Cagliari, Italy, to update us on the current status of therapeutic antiviral candidates that have been explored for COVID-19 management, and discuss what are the current challenges and future prospect of developing potent therapeutic antiviral agents against COVID-19.

<<Speaker Introduction>>
Dr. Enzo Tramontano is a Professor of virology in the Department of Life, Environmental and Drug Sciences at the University of Cagliari, Italy. He has long-standing expertise in antiviral drug development, particularly in the field of developing HIV inhibitors. He currently serves as the Dean of the Faculty of Biology and Pharmacy and is also a member of the European Society of Virology, the International Society for Antiviral Research, the American Society of Microbiology, the Italian Society of Virology, and the Italian Society of General Microbiology and Microbial Biotechnologies. His research is focused on the understanding and characterization of enzymatic reactions performed by proteins which are validated as targets for drug development and include the identification of HIV-1 RT-associated RNase H activity inhibitors and the characterization of Ebola virus VP35 function and identification of its inhibitors.

* This lecture will be held via Google Meet. The link will be provided after you complete the online registration.
* 2 points for TMU Global Learning Passport for students. 2 hours of TMU education training credits for faculty.
* For more information, please contact International Research Section (ogeirs@tmu.edu.tw)

Best regards,
International Research Section