Ligandal Is Developing Potential Antidote And Vaccine To SARS-CoV-2

Innovative approach attempts to treat the root of the cause, not the symptoms and cautions COVID is transmitted through a mist

SAN FRANCISCO, April 14, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Biological engineering company Ligandal, Inc. is applying its unique peptide-based delivery technologies to develop a prospective antidote and vaccine for SARS-CoV-2 (the novel coronavirus) to be formulated and developed in response to the worldwide pandemic. 

Ligandal's approach utilizes peptide scaffolds (think of them as nanorobots) that are designed with supercomputing and artificial intelligence (AI) to mimic the critical immune binding and responsive elements of the virus.  Additionally, these peptide scaffolds can be designed to serve as rapid-response antidotes to an ongoing infection. 

The company's peptide-based technology is expected to aid in eliminating the virus from an already-infected host, while bolstering the immune response. In other words, the approach to creating vaccines and antidotes against SARS-CoV-2, whereby the damage of SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 is offset, is to eliminate the immune cloaking mechanisms of the virus and instill an ultra-specific immune response.  This contrasts existing vaccine and therapeutic options which may not adequately form an immune response, and frequently treat symptomatic conditions without addressing the root cause of viral propagation and infection. 

"We are looking at medicine in a new way," stated Ligandal's CEO Andre Watson.  "Instead of treating symptoms or downstream effects, our approach is to reprogram the source of the problem, whether it be at the level of proteins, RNA or DNA. In other words, we can predictively model, synthesize and treat a variety of diseases at their source. This means that the normal way of treating diseases such as viruses and cancers, killing them, can be transformed to reprogramming and printing the body's own physiology to heal from within. 

"This changes all the assumptions, enabling a new way of thinking for treating disease and creating life enhancement. These same techniques can be used for rare monogenic diseases, complex multifactorial diseases, infectious diseases, regenerative medicine, immunotherapies, and beyond.  This is because we are working at the atomic level, ranging from designing custom protein-mimetic peptides to building sophisticated nanoscale delivery systems for delivering DNA, RNA, CRISPR, and beyond."