INITIAL STUDY ON SARS-COV-2 MAIN PROTEASE INHIBITION MECHANISM OF SOME POTENTIAL DRUGS USING MOLECULAR DOCKING SIMULATION

The infection by the new coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (called as COVID-19 disease) is a worldwide emergency, however, there is no antiviral treatment or vaccine to date. 3C like protease (3CLpro) is the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 that involved in the process of translation of the polypeptide from the genomic RNA to protein components, which are required for virus replication. The crystal structure of this protease has been rapidly resolved and made publicly in the Protein Data Bank recently. Many efforts have been conducted by scientists including the use of several commercial medicines that are known for treatment of HIV and anti-malarial/antibiotic such as arbidol, chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, azithromycin, darunavir, remdesivir and lopinavir/ritonavir. These drugs exhibited significant efficacy in clinical, however, the understanding at atomic level of how these compounds prevent SARS-CoV-2 protease is still lacking. Therefore, in this context docking protocol was employed to rapidly estimate the binding affinity and binding pose of six drugs on the main protease of SARS-CoV-2 virus. The obtained results might help to shed light on the interaction mechanism of these compounds toward the protein, and thus suggesting an efficient approach to drug discovery and treatments. © 2020, Publishing House of Natural Science and Technology, VAST. All rights reserved.

REVIEW: AUTODOCK 426 AS AN EFFECTIVE TOOL FOR MOLECULAR DOCKING STUDIES AGAINST SARS-COV-2 MAIN PROTEASE: A TUTORIAL USING MGLTOOLS

The worldwide pandemic caused by coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 (so called as COVID-19 disease) has affected 219 countries and territories, leading to numerous deaths and global financial crisis. The main protease (Mpro) of SARS-CoV-2 plays an important role in mediating the transcription and replication of virus, thus, one of the main therapeutic measures is to find compounds capable of inhibiting these enzymes as soon as possible. Nowadays, computer-aided drug design plays an important role in the field of drug discovery. In particular, molecular docking is one of the initial steps that effectively screen a numerous number of compounds for their interaction and binding affinity toward targeted enzyme, therefrom, suggesting a short list of potential inhibitors for further drug development processes. As part of our ongoing program to provide simple guideline for scientific community to utilize different docking tools for research purposes, in this article, a complete manual guideline of Autodock 4.2.6 is presented to demonstrate the simulation of interaction between compound PF-07321332 and the main protease of SARS-CoV-2, thereby suggesting an effective tool for scientists to conduct reseach on this disease. © 2022, Publishing House of Natural Science and Technology, VAST. All rights reserved.

Media Studies: Texts, Production, Context, Third edition

This thoroughly revised and updated third edition provides a comprehensive introduction to the various approaches to the field, explaining why media messages matter, how media businesses prosper and why media is integral to defining contemporary life. The text is divided into three parts – Media texts and meanings;Producing media;and Media and social contexts – 　exploring the ways in which various media forms make meaning;are produced and regulated;and how society, culture and history are defined by such forms. Encouraging students to actively engage in media research and analysis, each chapter seeks to guide readers through key questions and ideas in order to empower them to develop their own scholarship, expertise and investigations of the media worlds in which we live. Fully updated to reflect the contemporary media environment, the third edition includes new case studies covering topics such as Brexit, podcasts, Love Island, Captain Marvel, Black Lives Matter, Netflix, data politics, the Kardashians, President Trump, ‘fake news’, the post-Covid world and perspectives on global media forms. This is an essential introduction for undergraduate and postgraduate students of media studies, cultural studies, communication studies, film studies, the sociology of the media and popular culture. © 2022 Paul Long, Beth Johnson, Shana MacDonald and Schem Rogerson Bader.

GrazingFutures: learnings from a contemporary collaborative extension program in rangeland communities of western Queensland, Australia

Producer reliance on drought subsidies instead of proactive planning and timely destocking in low rainfall years has prompted Queensland government investment in promoting business and drought resilience. GrazingFutures (AU$6 million budget, 2016-2022) is an extension project focussed on enhancing business management skills of extensive livestock producers in western Queensland, Australia. The region's rangelands are in productivity decline, span 1 million km2 and are managed by graziers operating more than 2400 livestock businesses (beef, sheep and goats). The Queensland Department of Agriculture and Fisheries delivers GrazingFutures as a component of the Drought and Climate Adaptation Program, in partnership with regional natural resource management groups and other public and private organisations. Project delivery emphasised upskilling multi-agency staff and livestock producers to promote practice change within three whole of business themes: (1) grazing land management;(2) animal production;and (3) peoplebusiness. Three independent surveys (2018, 2019, 2020) indicated positive practice change was occurring in grazing businesses as a consequence of the project. Graziers instigated management changes even under major environmental challenges including extended drought (2013-2020), an extreme flood event in 2019 and the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. This paper details the rationale, progress against the objectives, challenges and future direction of the GrazingFutures extension project.

Virus detections among patients with severe acute respiratory illness, Northern Vietnam.

Severe acute respiratory illness (SARI) is a major cause of death and morbidity in low- and middle-income countries, however, the etiologic agents are often undetermined due to the lack of molecular diagnostics in hospitals and clinics. To examine evidence for select viral infections among patients with SARI in northern Vietnam, we studied 348 nasopharyngeal samples from military and civilian patients admitted to 4 hospitals in the greater Hanoi area from 2017-2019. Initial screening for human respiratory viral pathogens was performed in Hanoi, Vietnam at the National Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology (NIHE) or the Military Institute of Preventative Medicine (MIPM), and an aliquot was shipped to Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore for validation. Patient demographics were recorded and used to epidemiologically describe the infections. Among military and civilian cases of SARI, 184 (52.9%) tested positive for one or more respiratory viruses. Influenza A virus was the most prevalent virus detected (64.7%), followed by influenza B virus (29.3%), enterovirus (3.8%), adenovirus (1.1%), and coronavirus (1.1%). Risk factor analyses demonstrated an increased risk of influenza A virus detection among military hospital patients (adjusted OR, 2.0; 95% CI, 1.2-3.2), and an increased risk of influenza B virus detection among patients enrolled in year 2017 (adjusted OR, 7.9; 95% CI, 2.7-22.9). As influenza A and B viruses were commonly associated with SARI and are treatable, SARI patients entering these hospitals would benefit if the hospitals were able to adapt onsite molecular diagnostics.