CAS releases new open access COVID-19 Antiviral Candidate Compounds Dataset

Reviewed by James Ives, M.Psych. (Editor)Apr 2 2020

CAS, a division of the American Chemical Society specializing in scientific information solutions, is partnering with research and technology organizations worldwide to tackle the complex challenges presented by COVID-19. In support of calls to action from the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and innovation leaders around the globe, CAS just released an open access dataset of chemical compounds with known or potential antiviral activity to support research, data mining and analytics applications.

The new CAS COVID-19 Antiviral Candidate Compounds Dataset contains nearly 50,000 chemical substances assembled from the CAS REGISTRY^® that have antiviral activity reported in published literature or are structurally similar to known antivirals. Related metadata, such as CAS Registry Number^®, physical properties and a connection table for each substance, are also provided. The dataset is the first chemical substance collection contributed to the Allen Institute for AI's COVID-19 Open Research Dataset "CORD-19" and can also be downloaded directly from CAS.

I am deeply appreciative of the researchers and healthcare professionals on the front lines of the fight against COVID-19. CAS is fully committed to leveraging our content, technology and expertise in every way possible to support them in overcoming this challenge and saving lives. This initial dataset, curated by our team of scientists, will enable researchers, as well as emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, to make novel connections between previously published chemical research to hopefully accelerate treatments for this disease. We welcome inquiries from project teams that would benefit from contributions of additional data or services to support COVID-19 efforts."

Manuel Guzman, CAS President

As routine availability of an approved vaccine for COVID-19 is likely more than a year away, much of the short-term therapeutic research focus is on antiviral therapies that can mitigate symptoms and speed recovery. The curated collection of known and potential antiviral compounds CAS has developed provides a pool of candidate molecules that, if proven active against COVID-19, could be repurposed as short-term treatments.