REMDESIVIR

Subject: Science & tech

Context: Gilead to send Remdesivir vials to India, US stands by India to help fight COVID-19 2nd wave.

Concept:

Drug Controller General of India (DCGI) will have to issue an import license to bring the Gilead’s Remdesivir stocks to India. The volume of this is still not known, but it will be in order of a few lakh vials.

Remdesivir

Remdesivir is an injectable anti-virus. It is injected to prevent replication of the virus.
Remdesivir is designed to obstruct the stage of replication, when the virus creates copies of itself, followed endlessly by the copies creating copies of themselves.
Once the virus enters the human cell, it releases its genetic material, which is then copied using the body’s existing mechanism.
At every stage of infection, various human proteins, virus proteins, and their interactions come into play.
At the replication stage, the key viral protein at play is an enzyme called RdRp (an enzyme is a kind of protein that speeds up chemical reactions within a cell).
It is RdRp that makes the copies, by processing components of the RNA of the virus.
University of Alberta researchers called it the “engine” of the virus in a paper last week, in which they described the action of Remdesivir against this “engine”.
In scientific literature, such an enzyme is called a polymerase (the p is RdRp stands for polymerase) or a replica.
In any case, this is the enzyme that is targeted by Remdesivir.