#90 – Dmitry Korkin: Computational Biology of Coronavirus

About this episode

<p>Dmitry Korkin is a professor of bioinformatics and computational biology at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, where he specializes in bioinformatics of complex disease, computational genomics, systems biology, and biomedical data analytics. I came across Dmitry&#8217;s work when in February his group used the viral genome of the COVID-19 to reconstruct the 3D structure of its major viral proteins and their interactions with human proteins, in effect creating a structural genomics map of the coronavirus and making this data open and available to researchers everywhere. We talked about the biology of COVID-19, SARS, and viruses in general, and how computational methods can help us understand their structure and function in order to develop antiviral drugs and vaccines.</p> <p>Support this podcast by signing up with these sponsors:<br /> &#8211; Cash App &#8211; use code &#8220;LexPodcast&#8221; and download:<br /> &#8211; Cash App (App Store): <a href="https://apple.co/2sPrUHe">https://apple.co/2sPrUHe</a><br /> &#8211; Cash App (Google Play): <a href="https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w">https://bit.ly/2MlvP5w</a></p> <p>EPISODE LINKS:<br /> Dmitry&#8217;s Website: <a href="http://korkinlab.org/">http://korkinlab.org/</a><br /> Dmitry&#8217;s Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/dmkorkin">https://twitter.com/dmkorkin</a><br /> Dmitry&#8217;s Paper that we discuss: <a href="https://bit.ly/3eKghEM">https://bit.ly/3eKghEM</a></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">This conversation is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast.</span>&#160;If you would like to get more information about this podcast go to <a href="https://lexfridman.com/ai">https://lexfridman.com/ai</a> or connect with @lexfridman on <a href="https://twitter.com/lexfridman">Twitter</a>, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman/">LinkedIn</a>, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman">Facebook</a>, <a href="https://medium.com/@lexfridman">Medium</a>, or <a href="https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman">YouTube</a> where you can watch the video versions of these conversations. If you enjoy the podcast, please rate it 5 stars on <a href="https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/artificial-intelligence/id1434243584">Apple Podcasts</a>, follow on <a href="https://open.spotify.com/show/2MAi0BvDc6GTFvKFPXnkCL">Spotify</a>, or support it on <a href="https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman">Patreon</a>.</p> <p>Here&#8217;s the outline of the episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the timestamp to jump to that time.</p> <p>OUTLINE:<br /> 00:00 &#8211; Introduction<br /> 02:33 &#8211; Viruses are terrifying and fascinating<br /> 06:02 &#8211; How hard is it to engineer a virus?<br /> 10:48 &#8211; What makes a virus contagious?<br /> 29:52 &#8211; Figuring out the function of a protein<br /> 53:27 &#8211; Functional regions of viral proteins<br /> 1:19:09 &#8211; Biology of a coronavirus treatment<br /> 1:34:46 &#8211; Is a virus alive?<br /> 1:37:05 &#8211; Epidemiological modeling<br /> 1:55:27 &#8211; Russia<br /> 2:02:31 &#8211; Science bobbleheads<br /> 2:06:31 &#8211; Meaning of life</p>