Texas — Nearly $5 million worth of grant was awarded by the National Institute of Health to a collaborative team of scientists in Texas Biomedical Research Institute, Emory university, and Georgia Institute of Technology. The grant is intended to develop vaccines for hemorrhagic fever prevention.
Specifically, the grant is intended for the development of a vaccine for Marburg and Ebola virus infections. Both viruses are considered potential bioterrorism threats.
Lead investigators include Texas Biomed’s Jean L. Patterson and Richard Carrion Jr.; Emory University’s Richard Compans and Chinglai Yang a; and Georgia Institute of Technology’s Mark Prausnitz.
Considered as one of the promising and safest approach to protecting against hemorrhagic fever, the virus-like particle (VLP) developed by the Emory group has shown that Ebola VLPs stimulate immune cell activity and induce strong antibody responses that can be used to induce protective immunity against infection.
