An immunology researcher and professor has received a federal grant to help develop vaccines against viruses with potential to develop into pandemics.
La Jolla Institute for Immunology professor Sujan Shresta, Ph.D. will receive more than $2.4 million from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to help test experimental vaccine strategies against deadly viruses from the flavivirus and alphavirus families.
“This work is an important part of LJI’s mission of pandemic preparedness,” said Shresta in a statement.
“Both flaviviruses and alphaviruses cause numerous human diseases of global concern—and can cause explosive outbreaks with pandemic potential.”
This program is part of NIAID’s Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness Network, which comprises eight research programs focusing on different virus families with pandemic potential.
Shresta and her colleagues are investigating dengue, which is a flavivirus, and chikungunya, an alphavirus, as “prototypes” as they learn more about stopping members of these viral families.
These viruses are difficult to develop vaccines against. Compounding the matter, many flaviviruses and alphaviruses are tick-borne or carried by mosquitoes and are spreading rapidly in a world remade by climate change, which has allowed more virus-carrying arthropods to reach new regions.
Health officials are also seeing rising cases of Zika virus (a flavivirus), Powassan virus (a flavivirus), and eastern equine encephalitis (an alphavirus) in the United States.
“If we can pair the most promising vaccine candidates with the optimal vaccine platforms, we’ll have the pieces in place to rapidly combat future outbreaks, epidemics, and pandemics,” Shresta said.