Main Menu

The technology includes modifying the Plasmodium falciparum Pfs48/45 Domain III protein sequence to enhance its stability and efficacy to aid in malaria vaccine development. This approach successfully overcomes previous production challenges by increasing the thermostability of the antigen and eliminating the need for additional modifications that could impair vaccine effectiveness. Crucially, the technology maintains the essential neutralizing epitope of Pfs48/45, ensuring its effectiveness in preventing malaria transmission as a transmission-blocking vaccine.

An abstract for this invention was published in the Federal Register on June 10, 2022. The family of coronaviruses cause upper respiratory tract disease in humans and have caused three major disease outbreaks in recent history: the 2003 SARS outbreak, the 2012 MERS outbreak, and the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. There is an urgent need for strategies that broadly target coronaviruses, both to deal with new SARS-CoV-2 variants and future coronavirus outbreaks.

249 million people were afflicted with malaria in 2022. There are five Plasmodium parasite species that cause malaria in humans. Of the five, Plasmodium falciparum causes most of the incidence of human disease. Most advanced malaria vaccine candidates can confer only partial, short-term protection in malaria-endemic areas. The pathogenesis of malaria is associated with blood-stage infection and antibodies specific to the parasite blood-stage antigens may be able to control parasitemia.

This technology involves studying the role of the Tumor-Associated Calcium Signal Transducer 2 (TACSTD2) gene in Hepatitis C Virus (HCV) infection and hepatocellular carcinoma. Researchers perform transcriptomics analysis on liver specimens from HCV-infected patients, identify TACSTD2 as a key gene, and create a stable cell line that overexpresses TACSTD2 to investigate its impact on HCV infection and replication. This technology aims to provide insights into the molecular mechanisms of HCV infection and its association with liver cancer.

Enterovirus D68 (EV-D68) has been linked to the widespread outbreaks of respiratory illness and acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) in the United States and Europe in 2014, 2016, and 2018. Although EV-D68 is now the most frequently encountered enterovirus (41.1% of cases), with an estimated global prevalence of 4%, there are no specific, FDA-approved therapeutic interventions targeting this virus.

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) is the most widespread form of viral hemorrhagic fever, found in Eastern and Southern Europe, the Mediterranean, northwestern China, central Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and the Indian subcontinent. Typically beginning with non-specific fever, myalgia, nausea, diarrhea, and general malaise, symptoms of infection with the tick-borne CCHF virus (CCHFV) can rapidly progress to hemorrhagic manifestations, with case fatality rates as high as 30-40% in some regions.

Scientists at NIAID have developed two immortalized stable B cell lines from rhesus macaques that can have value as research tools for the discovery of neutralizing antibodies of simian origin against HIV and that may have value in the development of an HIV vaccine. These B cell lines encode human Bcl-6 and Bcl-xL proteins, which are major regulators of apoptosis. These B cell lines are derived from the lymph node of a rhesus macaque (RM) that was infected with SHIV.CH505.

       Emergence of highly transmissible SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern that are resistant to current therapeutic antibodies highlights the need for continuing discovery of broadly reactive antibodies.

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus and its immune-escaping variants have led to global COVID-19 pandemic/endemic, underscoring the urgent need for effective vaccines with strong and durable immune responses.