Blog COVID-19

The Sunshine Vitamin and COVID-19

Scientists have been looking for volunteers to take part in a new study to investigate the impacts of vitamin D, the 'sunshine vitamin', on the immune system. The study aims to determine whether taking vitamin D can help to increase immunity against respiratory diseases, including COVID-19, as some studies suggest a correlation between people with lower vitamin D levels and more severe COVID-19 symptoms.

Since a pandemic was declared nearly 6 months ago we have been closely monitoring what impact this has had for our users, depositors and the Cambridge Structural Database (CSD). We thought it was about time we shared some of our observations and hopefully give you some positive news for a change.

The 2020.2 CSD Release includes another 12,000+ CSD entries since the last data update in June and takes the total size of the CSD to over 1.08 million entries. Whilst this impressive rate of growth is testament to the ongoing efforts of scientists around the world, who publish and share the outcomes of their research with the community, the sheer size and diversity of structures in the CSD can be somewhat daunting.

To help researchers investigate insights into particular categories of compounds, the 2020.2 CSD Release has extended the range of available subsets, with new lists of structures focused on drugs, pesticides and those structures that have been highlighted as being of interest in the fight against COVID-19. These new CSD subsets add to the existing subsets that include ‘best representative’ lists for statistical analysis of the CSD, subsets of metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and CSD entries containing information on atomic anisotropic displacement parameters (ADPs; otherwise known as thermal ellipsoids).

On 16^th June news outlets around the world reported the fantastic results seen in trials using dexamethasone in critically ill COVID-19 patients. This quick briefing explores the chemistry and history of this compound, and what could be coming next.

Since my last article almost 2 weeks ago progress has been made on several projects, so I wanted to provide a quick update.

The CCDC is actively seeking areas where we can assist in the fight against the nefarious SARS-Cov2 disease currently taking hold around the world.

We’ve already started committing to research time and have noted several collaborative efforts.

At the CCDC we have been deeply saddened by the devastating impact that COVID-19 has had around the world. During these difficult times it has, however, been heart-warming to see the scientific community coming together to try to find a cure and a vaccine.

Elsevier have made available a collection of around 20,000 articles relating to COVID-19. These are available to download for free for text and data mining.

A question one might ask is; which of these articles have an associated CSD structure?

As the corona virus (COVID-19) pandemic continues, scientists around the world have set up virtual projects to collaborate, share knowledge, resources and data to support drug discovery.