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Network-based embedding of all human proteins using machine learning. It is symbolic how the targets of the COVID-19 virus, highlighted in red, wrap around the whole human interactome. Image by  Marinka Zitnik .  Less than ten days after we started, we now have a list of drug candidates for COVID-19 priorities using the tools of Network Medicine . And we are hoping that as early as this week, the top candidates will start their journey to the experimental lab, to be tested in human cell lines.  How did we arrive here in such a short time? With an incredible team ( Asher Ameli, Albert-László Barabási, Xiao Gan, Dina Ghiassian, Deisy Morselli Gysi, Ítalo Do Valle, Joseph Loscalzo, Grecia Morales, Helia Sanchez, Onur Varol, Marinka Zitnik, Nicolette Lee ) , many of whom dropped everything else to contribute to this effort. It helped that our network medicine toolset was ripe for this challenge!  Here is a summary of our main finding so far: We ident...

COVID-19 and Network Medicine

Network Medicine  offers a series of powerful tools to identify new drugs and diagnostics. In this exceptional moment of need, we decided to turn the BarabasiLab 's intellectual resources and network medicine toolset to aid the hunt for a treatment for the COVID-19.  We started on March 17, with  Deisy Gysi , by  re-curating our own 2012 work on viral-host interactions for  EBV and HPV , and downloading data for other viruses.  On March 23,  around 1am  Gordon et al  , the collaboration lead by Krogan Lab   shared the protein-protein interaction map for COVID-19. I immediately sent the paper to Deisy, who in the morning has integrated the data with the network medicine platform that my lab has developed during the past fifteen years. With that, on March 23, the COVID-19 group was formed in the BarabasiLab . Normally we hunker down in the lab, and quietly perform the work, write a paper, and publish the results in a refereed jour...

COVID-19: Moving fast!

It is amazing how much a group of committed scientists can achieve in one day, if motivated! Yesterday we reviewed results that normally we see in three weeks!  And we added AI to our toolset, as we search for a cure. Here is a quick summary, and keep in mind, all results are preliminary, and moving fast! The figure above was generated by  Italo Valle , who mapped the COVID-19 target proteins to the diseases space.  He finds that COVID-19 does not hit directly any major disease module (he checked against the 299 diseases in    Menche et al. ). It is, however,  close to several disease-related protein groups,  the most notable being immune system diseases, in line with observations, that the virus depletes T cells. Anyone has reference to this?  He is now on to find the list of chemicals that perturb  the subcellular neighborhood perturbed by the virus. Deisy Gysi  mapped 12 viruses, whose interactions with human cells were pr...