Quantum Genomics Approach To Therapeutics Design - QGATD

Drug repurposing facilitates a quick response to unknown pathogens, helping to stop the uncontrolled spread of diseases and mitigate social and economic harm. Traditional computational approaches to drug repurposing are time-consuming, resource-intensive, costly, and hardly scalable. Quantum Genomics Approach to Therapeutics Design is a solution that eliminates these drawbacks.

Ikwan Onwuka

Drug repurposing is an effective strategy to find new indications for existing drugs. It decreases the time cost of the drug development process significantly and facilitates a quick response to unknown pathogens and new disease outbreaks. This helps to stop the uncontrolled spread of diseases and mitigate social and economic harm. 

Whereas it takes up to 15 years to develop a new drug at a paltry 2.01% success rate, researchers only need 1-2 years to identify a new drug-target pair and a few years to develop a repositioned drug.

As good as this merit might seem, it fades in the gloom of a global health emergency such as the present COVID-19 pandemic. 1-2 years is a very long time to spend on drug-target identification in a pandemic situation where quick response is key to saving human lives.

The 1-2 years time cost for candidate drug identification is an inherent disadvantage of the computational models applied in traditional drug repurposing. Quantum Genomics Approach To Therapeutics Design, QGATD, is a solution that circumvents this flaw by deploying a more effective computational model, driven by data and analytics. QGATD makes it possible to identify new drug-target pairs within minutes or a few hours.

The QGATD solution is a unique innovation. As such, its target audience includes the entire value chain of the global therapeutics development community. To mention a few:

• Research scientists
• Health professionals
• Pharmacologists 
• Drug administration regulators
• Disease control agencies
• Public health policymakers
• The World Health Organisation

Therefore, by extension, the QGATD solution serves the general public.

Specifically, the QGATD solution helps the target audience to circumvent the drawbacks of the traditional computational approach to drug repurposing as discussed in the preceding sections of this entry. It helps them to accurately identify candidate therapeutic agents (drugs) in record time, hence guaranteeing a quick therapeutic response to new disease outbreaks.

I would also point out here that I use "Therapeutics" in a broad sense to include pharmaceutical and nutraceutical drugs, herbal medicine, and other complementary/alternative modalities like aromatherapy and sound therapy.

Firstly, the QGATD solution will be launched globally on the internet as a free-to-access resource for in silico therapeutics design. 

Secondly, the presentation will be structured to encourage collaborations that will accelerate advancements in therapeutics design.

Thirdly, the science behind the QGATD innovation will be published, peer-reviewed, and made available to the scientific community under Creative Commons license.

The QGATD solution will create a tangible impact on global health, especially in health emergencies where quick therapeutic response time is required. Again, let me use the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic to illustrate how the QGATD will impact future health emergencies.

On the 5th of January 2020, the World Health Organization, WHO, officially issued its first Disease Outbreak News report on the novel coronavirus disease. 5 days later, it confirmed receiving the genetic sequence for the novel coronavirus. On the 24th of January, WHO held an informal consultation on the prioritization of candidate therapeutic agents for use in the novel coronavirus infections. However, the choice of candidate drugs was not based on the new coronavirus. Rather, it was based on the efficacy of existing broad-spectrum antivirals and treatments used for MERS-CoV, another coronavirus similar to the novel coronavirus. The WHO's excuse was that there were gaps in knowledge around the new virus. I believe there were more reasons for that seemingly counterintuitive decision. 

It was a race against time and the traditional model for identifying candidate drugs as of January 2020 was time-intensive. The time cost would have run into months if the WHO decided to identify candidate drugs specifically for the new virus. So, not only was there a knowledge gap, but there was also a solution gap.

With the QGATD solution, the story would have been different. The genetic sequence received on the 10th of January 2020 would have just been enough to select therapeutic targets and deploy the QGATD to identify candidate drugs to be prioritized for trials. This would have been achieved the same day the genetic sequence was received. Furthermore, the candidate drug identification would have been more accurate and the race to repurpose a drug for COVID-19 would have yielded a better result in record-breaking time. Such is the impact the QGATD solution is capable of creating if embraced and deployed during health emergencies.

The impact of the QGATD solution will depend largely on:

• the acceptance of its underlying science
• its adoption by the target audience.

Therefore, a substantial portion of the QGATD budget will be spent on bridging knowledge gaps that might hinder its acceptance. Attention will be paid to promoting the solution to its target audience globally.

For the first year, after setting up the QGATD portal, efforts will be focused on packaging the innovation properly and pushing for its acceptance within the global scientific community. 

Over the next three years, the drive will be for increased adoption of the solution by the target audience enumerated elsewhere in this document. 

Also, more databases will be added to the Machine Learning core as time progresses. During the first year, the QGATD solution will run with a pharmaceutical database. In subsequent years, we will add a nutraceutical database, a herbal or phototherapy database, an aromatherapy database, and so on.

In the next three years, the QGATD enterprise will scale into therapeutics development consultancy, using the QGATD innovation to support organizations involved in drug repurposing.

The enterprise will also liaise with other projects like the Global Virome Project, GVP. 

One of the laudable goals of the GVP is to identify over 500,000 animal viruses capable of transmission to humans. The QGATD project will seek collaboration with the GVP to obtain genomic/proteomic data of the viruses they might discover or uncover. This data will enable the QGATD enterprise to identify therapeutic agents and store them in a repository as a preemptive measure against future viral disease outbreaks.

Firstly, we shall set up Big Data metrics and indicators to monitor the popularity of the QGATD solution within the scientific community in general, and the therapeutics design industry in particular.

Secondly, usage of the QGATD platform will be tracked to measure global adoption and penetration.

The business model supporting the QGATD solution will have pre-built markers for measuring success. We shall engage experts in these aspects.

The major barrier to accomplishing the set goals for the QGATD solution is finance.

I am also hoping the scientific community does not consider the science behind my innovation too disruptive. So, I am preparing to bridge any education/knowledge gap that might delay the acceptance of the QGATD innovation within the scientific community.

1. Medicvibe Sciences

The major barrier hindering the release of the QGATD innovation and unleashing its global impact is startup finance. Winning a spot in the Trinity Challenge will help me surmount this barrier.

The organizations I would like to partner with are as follows:

1. Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

This foundation has been at the forefront of confronting global health issues and are widely invested in therapeutics development. I would like to partner with them at the level of mentorship and information sharing.

2. GlaxoSmithKline, GSK

GSK is actively involved in drug development. Our partnership could take the form of mentorship and sharing of helpful information.

3. Global Virome Project

One of the goals of the GVP is to fill the knowledge gap for unknown viruses and to provide bioinformatics to foster new strategies for the development of vaccines, pharmaceuticals, and other new classes of countermeasures. A partnership between GVP and my QGATD project will be mutually beneficial. Using the QGATD solution, we can repurpose all sorts of therapeutics for any unknown virus under the GVP's radar. This will help achieve the GVP goal of preparing the world ahead of future viral disease outbreaks and health emergencies.

4. ZENYSIS

With expertise in Big Data and Artificial Intelligence, ZENYSIS could be of help in engineering the Machine Learning core of my QGATD solution. They can also help with database integrations. 

5. McKinsey & Company

Since McKinsey & Company is a global management consulting firm that serves leading businesses, governments, non-governmental organizations, and not-for-profits, we can partner in the area of business consulting.