Partnership to help bring Zika virus therapy to clinic

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.

Alex Bunnell

Alex
Bunnell
Project Manager
alexander.bunnell@vumc.org

Alexander Bunnell is an Associate Project Manager for the VVC. He is a graduate of Lipscomb University where he studied Project Management and Corporate Management. He provides support for the planning, developing and executing of day to day projects. He manages intellectual property, material requests and CDA requests, in addition to assisting with grant and contract progress reports. He is also an acting liaison between CTTC and the lab and assists the Senior Program Manager with collaboration management.

BunnellAlex

VUMC partners with Batavia to move promising Zika antibody therapy closer to the clinic

Researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) 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.

Andrew Trivette

Andrew
Trivette
Application Developer
andrew.trivette@vumc.org

Andrew Trivette completed his BS and MS in Biology at Middle Tennessee State University, where his MS research focused on the role of certain membrane-bound proteins in the Saccharomyces cerevisiae secretory pathway. Then he spent 3 years at North Carolina State University where he worked in Bioinformatics, studying how and where translation occurs in Arabidopsis thaliana and attempting to identify novel, non-canonical translation start sites using ribosome footprinting data.  

TrivetteAndrew

Tracy Martin

Tracy
Martin
Sr. Financial Analyst
tracy.martin@vumc.org

Hello, I'm Tracy Martin. I am originally from Nashville, and I have lived many different places over the years, but landed back in Tennessee to settle down just outside of Nashville.  I graduated from Western Governors University with a degree in Business and Human Resources Management, with a strong concentration in Accounting and Finance principles.  I am in my twenty-fifth year with VUMC, having worked in the Children’s Hospital in Pediatric and Adolescent inpatient units, Myelosuppression and Hematology/Oncology units, and Nursing Administration for the first twenty-one years and in Infectious Diseases at the Comprehensive Care Center with the Southeast AIDS Education & Training Center since 2015 on a grant for educating providers who care for people living with HIV.  Outside of work, you would most likely find me reading, working in my yard planting flowers and trees, or exploring new places with my camera.

Laura Powell receives scholarship for the Keystone conference

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!

First RNA-Delivered Antibody Set to Enter Clinical Trials

A monoclonal antibody against the chikungunya virus developed by researchers at Vanderbilt University Medical Center is the first monoclonal antibody encoded by messenger RNA to enter a clinical trial. Moderna Inc., a biotechnology firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, that is focused on developing mRNA-based vaccines and therapeutics, announced the clinical trial earlier this month.

Researchers comprehensively sequence the human immune system

For the first time ever, researchers are comprehensively sequencing the human immune system, which is billions of times larger than the human genome. In a new study published in Nature from the Human Vaccines Project, scientists have sequenced a key part of this vast and mysterious system -- the genes encoding the circulating B cell receptor repertoire.

Researchers push forward frontiers of vaccine science

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

DARPA and VUMC use high-throughput synthetic genes to hasten antibody discovery

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.