The COVID-19 pandemic made clear that the world’s antiviral therapeutic arsenal is bare, with the majority of viral pandemic pathogens lacking clinically effective therapeutics. More optimistically, the response of the scientific community to the novel SARS-CoV-2 virus proved that modern computational techniques and antiviral assays now allow for efficient development of antiviral therapeutics. This was highlighted by the collaboration of the White lab with Pfizer in the development of Paxlovid, which reduces COVID-19 mortality by up to 90%. The founding principle of the White lab is to engage future pandemics with the same intensity as an ongoing pandemic, so that antiviral therapeutics will be available at the earliest stages of the next pandemic with the objective of saving millions of lives. 

The goal of our lab is the continued development of orally bioavailable antiviral drugs for the treatment of clinical RNA viral infections, with particular emphasis on viruses of pandemic potential. To achieve this, we are focused on advanced cell culture and animal model systems for the preclinical analysis of small molecule antiviral drug candidates. The White lab works in partnership with many pharmaceutical collaborators and academic laboratories across the world.  

Using liquid handling robotics (Biomek i7), we specialize in high throughput screening of small molecule drugs using advanced cell culture models in live virus infection assays under BSL3 conditions. Furthermore, we aim to produce antiviral therapeutics with long-term clinical efficacy in an ever-changing landscape of viral variants, which often generates resistance to treatments. Therefore, the White lab integrates antiviral resistance analysis through next generation sequencing (NGS) and drug combination analysis to suppress resistance into our antiviral drug discovery pipelines. The White lab brings all these tools to bear as a member of multiple Antiviral Drug Discovery (AViDD) centers, which are NIH funded U19’s collectively working toward the goal of developing a total of six orally bioavailable antiviral drugs targeting RNA viruses of pandemic potential, including coronavirus.