Flu shots can be hard to sell to the public. Even a run-of-the-mill influenza infection can be debilitating to otherwise healthy people, and lethal to those who are elderly or frail, so vaccinations are important. The problem is that flu vaccines deliver inconsistent performance. “In a good season, we’re up to 60% effectiveness, but in bad, mismatched years it can be as low as 10% or 20%,” says Barney Graham, deputy director of the Vaccine Research Center at the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) in Bethesda, Maryland.

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center are partnering with the Dutch biopharmaceutical firm Batavia Biosciences and Nashville-based IDBiologics to bring to the clinic a highly potent Zika virus neutralizing antibody they isolated three years ago. The mosquito-borne Zika virus is believed to cause microcephaly, unusually small heads, and other congenital malformations in children born to infected women. Currently there is no way to prevent Zika virus infection or its aftermath.

Laura Powell has been awarded a Keystone Symposia Future of Science Fund scholarship to attend the upcoming meeting on Positive-Strand RNA Viruses, Jun 9 - Jun 13, 2019, in INEC, Killarney Convention Centre in Killarney, Co. Kerry.  Congrats Laura!

It seems as though every year there is another story of a virus rampaging through Africa, Asia, or even the Americas. And each time another Ebola outbreak occurs or the flu virus mutates in surprising ways, the conversation about global pandemic preparedness is rekindled. Borders are closed. Flights and cruise ships are cancelled. Images of quarantine tents and healthcare workers in space-like suits fill the news outlets.

Using sophisticated gene sequencing and computing techniques, researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and the San Diego Supercomputer Center have achieved a first-of-its-kind glimpse into how the body’s immune system gears up to fight off infection. Their findings, published Feb. 13 in the journal Nature, could aid development of “rational vaccine design,” as well as improve detection, treatment and prevention of autoimmune diseases, infectious diseases, and cancer

Recent outbreaks of deadly viruses like Ebola, Zika and Monkeypox have shocked the world with their impact. In nature, the viruses typically lie dormant in their animal hosts, accruing mutations that change their genetic make-up significantly. Once an event occurs that allows the viruses to jump to humans, our immune systems are not prepared. The viruses spread rapidly, causing significant, life threatening infection, reminding us just how vulnerable we are to these diseases.

Scientists at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and colleagues in Boston, Seattle and St. Louis are racing to develop — in a mere 90 days — a protective antibody-based treatment that can stop the spread of the Zika virus. This is the first of four “scientific sprints” sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), part of the U.S. Department of Defense, under a five-year cooperative agreement worth up to $28 million that was signed last year.