Session 1D: Symposium: Pathogen outbreaks: Cause, spread and control

Chairperson: Saumitra Das

Rna Viruses: Invasion Strategies

RNA viruses are one of the major classes of severe human pathogens, which pose a real threat to global disease control. The biological diversity and ability for rapid adaptive changes to effectively utilize the host cell machinery for replication and propagation is their unique ability, which makes it more difficult to anticipate and overcome the menace. Targeting the virus, without side effects to host is one more obstacle for drug design against RNA viruses. The causative agent of COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2 is one such example, which has infected millions of individuals because of strategies like stronger binding affinity to its receptor and exploitation of essential cellular factors. We still have to go a long way in this arms race to protect us, understand complexity of the problem in infected host, unravel molecular mechanism adapted by the virus to invade new host species and finally develop new pharmaceuticals to successfully fight back.