Kathleen_Proteomics.pdf

Infectious diseases have long been a major problem based on the number of fatalities recorded in affected countries. COVID-19, which was first reported in the Wuhan province of China, was initially thought to be contained and the chances of a global spread, was not anticipated. However, on March 11, 2020 the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic based on more than 118,000 cases of this disease reported in over 110 countries and territories around the world and the sustained risk of further global spread. Unfortunately, almost three months after this declaration by the WHO, more cases as well as spread of COVID-19 are still being reported in the thousands in various countries around the globe. COVID-19-induced fatalities are also reported in the thousands across all age groups. Various national governments around the world have implemented various preventive measures recommended for reducing spread of infectious diseases generally. Development of therapeutic modalities for COVID-19 is currently the focus of numerous laboratories around the world. Some vaccines and antiviral candidates are being tested in multiple clinical trials to improve human safety. Thus, whether any of these drug candidates will eventually receive FDA approval remains unknown. This review highlights the use of proteomic by various authors to identify biomarkers which are promising therapeutic candidates against SARScov-2, the causative agent of COVID-19. These studies also identified pathways, which could be hijacked by this virus during its life cycle. Validation of these individual proteomic findings needs to be followed up by other research groups, which might hopefully confirm the usefulness of these biomarkers for COVID vaccines, antivirals and rapid diagnostic kit development.