Zika Virus

An experimental Zika vaccine lowered levels of virus in pregnant monkeys and improved fetal outcomes in a rhesus macaque model of congenital Zika virus infection, according to a new study in Science Translational Medicine. The research was conducted by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, and their collaborators from the University of California, Davis; Duke University, Durham, North Carolina; and the University of California, Los Angeles. NIAID scientists developed the experimental vaccine and currently are evaluating it in a Phase 2 human clinical trial. The vaccine uses a small circular piece of DNA, or plasmid, containing genes that encode Zika virus surface proteins to induce an immune response.

Like an adjustable wrench that becomes the “go-to” tool because it is effective and can be used for a variety of purposes, an existing drug that can be adapted to halt the replication of different viruses would greatly expedite the treatment of different infectious diseases. Such a strategy would prevent thousands of deaths each year from diseases like dengue and Ebola, but whether it can be done has been unclear. Now, in new work, researchers at the Lewis Katz School of Medicine at Temple University (LKSOM) show that repurposing an existing drug to treat viral diseases is in fact possible – potentially bypassing the decades needed to develop such a broad-spectrum drug from scratch.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the cobas Zika test, a qualitative nucleic acid test for the detection of Zika virus RNA in individual plasma specimens obtained from volunteer donors of whole blood and blood components, and from living organ donors. It is intended for use by blood collection establishments to detect Zika virus in blood donations, not for the individual diagnosis of Zika virus infection.

The Zika virus (ZIKV) may infect and kill a specific type of brain cancer cells while leaving normal adult brain tissue minimally affected, according to a new study supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), a part of the National Institutes of Health. In the paper, published online on September 5 in The Journal of Experimental Medicine, researchers describe the impact of ZIKV on glioblastoma cells in both human tissue samples and mice.

Inovio Pharmaceuticals, Inc. announced that Inovio and its collaborators have published results in Nature Partner Journals (npj) Vaccines demonstrating that its Zika DNA vaccine (GLS-5700) protected animals from infection, brain damage and death. In this study 100% of GLS-5700 vaccinated animals were protected from Zika infection after exposure to the virus. In addition, vaccinated mice were protected from degeneration in the cerebral cortex and hippocampal areas of the brain while unvaccinated mice showed significant degeneration of the brain after Zika infection.

HSRx Biopharmaceutical, a leading developer of polyfunctional-powered combination drugs for infectious and age-related chronic disease conditions, confirmed its orally administered broad-spectrum antiviral drug candidate, HSRx 431, is effective against the Zika virus. HSRx expects to begin human trials early in 2017 and will seek accelerated drug approval from the US Food & Drug Administration.

 U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued a revised guidance recommending universal testing of donated Whole Blood and blood components for Zika virus in the U.S. and its territories.

USC researchers have tracked down two Zika proteins potentially responsible for thousands of microcephaly cases in Brazil and elsewhere -- taking one small step toward preventing Zika-infected mothers from birthing babies with abnormally small heads.