Developing Synthetic Full-Length SARS-CoV-2 cDNAs and Reporter Viruses for High-Throughput Antiviral Drug Screening
Megha Rohamare, Nidhi Kaushik, Juveriya Qamar Khan, Mahrokh Balouchi, Joaquin Lopez-Orozco, Robert Kozak, Tom C. Hobman, Darryl Falzarano, Anil Kumar, Joyce A. Wilson · 2025
Read Developing Synthetic Full-Length SARS-CoV-2 cDNAs and Reporter Viruses for High-Throughput Antiviral Drug Screening by Megha Rohamare, Nidhi Kaushik, Juveriya Qamar Khan, Mahrokh Balouchi, Joaquin Lopez-Orozco, Robert Kozak, Tom C. Hobman, Darryl Falzarano, Anil Kumar, Joyce A. Wilson (2025) in the Tower of Babel, a free online library of public-domain works preserved in clean, searchable text. No sign-up. The full text is served as a plain-text file at a predictable URL, where text is present: https://antarctic-labs.com/tower-of-babel/pmc-12846678.txt.
Description
Megha Rohamare and nine co-authors order synthetic copies of the COVID-19 virus genome to speed drug screening, in a 2025 paper. The virus's genome is long, about 30,000 letters, which makes classic cloning slow and fiddly.
Chemical synthesis produced full-length DNA copies of the Delta and Omicron variants, plus versions carrying a glowing reporter gene. Viruses grown from the clones behaved like patient isolates. The reporter glowed in proportion to virus levels and stayed stable, giving a clean readout for drug tests. Three known antivirals yielded potency values matching published ranges. Reporter virus also grew in human airway cells. The toolkit turns antiviral screening into a plate-reading exercise.
Catalog record
| CREATOR | Megha Rohamare, Nidhi Kaushik, Juveriya Qamar Khan, Mahrokh Balouchi, Joaquin Lopez-Orozco, Robert Kozak, Tom C. Hobman, Darryl Falzarano, Anil Kumar, Joyce A. Wilson |
|---|---|
| YEAR | 2025 |
| COLLECTION | PAPERS |
| FORMAT | TXT |
| FILE SIZE | 38 KB |
| VERSION | 1.0 |
| LICENSE | CC BY 4.0 |
| RIGHTS | CC BY |
| SOURCE | Europe PMC |