Bioscience News - GEG Tech top picks

Therapeutic nanosystems and diagnostic systems are increasingly being applied to various areas of medicine, acting as sensors, delivery vehicles, immunostimulants, radiation sensitizers and viral inhibitors. In an article recently published in the journal Pharmaceutics, the application of nanomaterials in the diagnosis, prevention and treatment of viral diseases is reviewed in detail, highlighting areas of significant progress or stagnation over the past decades. Drug delivery is the primary focus of nanomaterials in disease treatment, generally offering improved pharmacokinetics, drug retention time, and "drug-like" of the administered compound. The physical and chemical properties of the nanoparticle strongly influence the biodistribution of the nanomedicine in the body and the ability and propensity of the particle to enter the target cells. In addition to being used as a delivery vehicle, the nanoparticles themselves can be used as viral therapy, acting to block the viral replication cycle or cell entry. Particles constructed from copper, silver and gold are also capable of generating reactive oxygen species. In addition to being directly damaging to viral genetic material, it can induce apoptosis in infected cells, thus preventing viral propagation.

AstraZeneca shares turned negative Wednesday after a Brazilian health authority said a volunteer in its coronavirus vaccine study died.

The Federal University of Sao Paulo, which is helping coordinate late-stage trials in Brazil, separately said that the volunteer was Brazilian, according to Reuters.

A new HIV vaccine candidate has been trialled in humans and monkeys, with promising results.

Nearly 400 healthy, uninfected adults mounted an immune response against the vaccine and tolerated it well, according to the latest study. In monkeys, 67 percent were protected against the closely-related SHIV infection.

The International AIDS Society president has called on the United States to "stay engaged" in HIV research. US President Donald Trump's proposed budget outlined funding cuts for global health initiatives.

Researchers at the Michael G. DeGroote Institute for Infectious Disease Research at McMaster have developed the first widely protective vaccine against chlamydia, a common STI that is mostly asymptomatic but impacts 113 million people around the world each year and can result in infertility.

In a study, recently published in the journal Vaccine, the researchers show that a novel chlamydial antigen known as BD584 is a potential vaccine candidate for the most common species of chlamydia known as Chlamydia trachomatis.

A dengue vaccine developed by U.S. National Institutes of Health scientists protected everyone given the shot against the virus in a promising small study published on Wednesday, with the researchers saying it could become widely available by 2018.

Dalan Animal Health’s vaccine for American foulbrood, an aggressive bacterial disease, is the first for any insect in the United States. 

The recent emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants B.1.1.7 in the UK11 and B.1.351 in South Africa12 is of concern because of their purported ease of transmission and extensive mutations in the spike protein. This study reports that B.1.1.7 is refractory to neutralization by most mAbs to the N-terminal domain (NTD) of the spike and relatively resistant to a few mAbs to the receptor-binding domain (RBD). It is not more resistant to convalescent plasma or vaccinee sera. Findings on B.1.351 are more worrisome in that this variant is not only refractory to neutralization by most NTD mAbs but also by multiple individual mAbs to the receptor-binding motif on RBD, largely owing to an E484K mutation. Moreover, B.1.351 is markedly more resistant to neutralization by convalescent plasma (9.4 fold) and vaccinee sera (10.3-12.4 fold). B.1.351 and emergent variants13,14 with similar spike mutations present new challenges for mAb therapy and threaten the protective efficacy of current vaccines.

The ‘D614G’ mutation (Aspartate-to-Glycine change at position 614) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has been speculated to adversely affect the efficacy of most vaccines and countermeasures that target this glycoprotein, necessitating frequent vaccine matching. Virus neutralisation assays were performed using sera from ferrets which received two doses of the INO-4800 COVID-19 vaccine, and Australian virus isolates (VIC01, SA01 and VIC31) which either possess or lack this mutation but are otherwise comparable. Through this approach, supported by biomolecular modelling of this mutation and the commonly-associated P314L mutation in the RNA-dependent RNA polymerase, the authors have shown that there is no experimental evidence to support this speculation. They additionally demonstrate that the putative elastase cleavage site introduced by the D614G mutation is unlikely to be accessible to proteases.

The results of this study show that immunization of cows may provide an avenue to rapidly generate antibody prophylactics and therapeutics to address disease agents that have evolved to avoid human antibody responses.

The University of New Mexico study provides strong evidence for the effectiveness of vaccines that target the human papilloma virus, or HPV, that causes most cervical cancers, the study’s lead author said.

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) plans to help bring a vaccine for the Zika virus to market immediately via Emergent BioSolutions Inc., which also developed the anthrax vaccine.

Emergent BioSolutions said that it obtained a contract with ASPR’s Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to develop and manufacture three cGMP lots of a Zika vaccine for use in a phase 1 clinical trial is valued at up to $21.9 million.