A single-cell drug discovery method using viral proteases, nametags, drug compounds, and genome sequencing can accelerate testing.

“A: This is standard single-cell drug discovery and it could work, the problem is we need a solution in the next few weeks or sooner if we are to impact this first wave. Chavez solved this problem by putting proteases from each virus into different cells, then creating what he calls nametags for each of the cells. He adds possible drug compounds to the cells and uses genome sequencing to read the tags, which allows him to see whether any of the viral proteases are blocked by each drug.”