AI-driven drug discovery: A boon against COVID-19?

Abstract

The COVID-19 is an issue of international concern and threat to public health and there is an urgent need of drug/vaccine design. There is no vaccine or specific drug yet made as of July 23, 2020, for the coronavirus disease (COVID-19). Thus, the patients currently can only be treated symptomatically. A quick identification of the drugs for COVID-19 may act as a potential therapeutic medication which has been used earlier in patients to answer the present pandemic condition before it could get more worse. According to our view, an artificial intelligence (AI) based tool that may predict drugs/peptides directly from the sequences of infected patients and thereby, they might have better affinity with the target and contribute towards vaccine design against COVID-19. Researchers across the world proposed several vaccines/drugs for COVID-19 utilizing AI based approaches, however, testing of these proposed vaccines/drugs will be needed to verify the safety and feasibility for combating COVID-19.