JEDI launches billion molecules against COVID19 challenge

May 05, 2020: “The Joint European Disruptive Initiative is launching on a global basis the JEDI Billion Molecules against Covid19 Grand Challenge.

Stage 1 of this unique, concrete, impact-driven competition will run for 33 days until June 6.

● Open to the best scientific & technology teams in the world, it has one objective: screen billions of molecules with blocking interactions on SARS-CoV-2, and ultra-fast-track the route to a therapeutic treatment, which is, with the development of a vaccine, the only exit from the current global crisis.

● Stage 1 is a real moonshot: instead of testing individual molecules – what is happening all over the world – the participant teams will, at a scale never seen before, screen enormous molecular libraries against protein targets of the virus, using supercomputing and AI.

Results will be cross-correlated to determine a “high potential” list of unprecedented quality, allowing a fast track to clinical testing. Overall time to find active compounds reliably will be massively shorter as compared to current methods.

● Already before the start of the JEDI GrandChallenge, more than 45 teams from the best research institutions, biotechs and corporates have pre-registered to participate, a particularly strong mobilization to solve a very hard problem.

● As several countries come together for the Global Response pledging event of the EU, we call upon them, as well as all private & public donors, to join JEDI and its partners, the AXA Research Fund, Merck and the BMW Foundation, in this highly ambitious and impact-driven initiative, with results shared with the world, in Open Science. “

https://jedi.group/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/JEDICovid19GrandChallengeENGRelease-04052020.pdf