SARS-CoV-2 main protease (M^pro) is one the most promising targets to fight COVID-19, and due to that, it has been extensively studied for the past few months. Effective computational protocols can help tackle these key proteins so a robust and thorough pipeline of in silico protein-ligand characterization methods was developed to address this biological problem.

Last week, in a two days event that took place at the University of Coimbra, these methodologies were showcased to characterize the interaction of SARS-CoV-2 M^pro with an α-ketoamide inhibitor.

During the first day of the event, seventy-two people gather to hear talking about Structural Biology. The second day was mainly focused on Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. A group of fifty people learned about this computer simulation technique that can be particularly important when, for example, we want to determine how a biomolecular system responds to a perturbation.

A warm thank you to all the speakers and participants for contributing to this event that exceeded all the expectations!