Hantavirus Infections

Einstein-Led Research Consortium Awarded Five-Year Grant for $14 M per Year BRONX, N.Y., Sept. 13, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Albert Einstein College of Medicine has received a five-year, $14 million per year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) to participate in a broad national effort to develop "plug-and-play" vaccines and antibody-based therapies against a wide range of emerging viruses. The grant is part of NIAID's new Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness (ReVAMPP) Network, which was announced earlier today. Continue Reading Kartik Chandran, Ph.D. "COVID-19 taught us a lot about pandemic preparedness, and we want to make sure we build on what worked well," said Kartik Chandran, Ph.D., the principal investigator on the grant and professor of microbiology & immunology, the Gertrude and David Feinson Chair in Medicine, and the Harold and Muriel Block Faculty Scholar in Virology at Einstein. "One of the key lessons from the COVID pandemic is that having existing research on a viral family allows scientists to develop vaccines and therapeutics for a particular virus much more quickly. In our project, we plan to create a base of critical knowledge about groups of similar viruses and then—should a related "virus X" pose a health threat—develop specific countermeasures as quickly as possible to save as many lives as possible." The Einstein-led consortium, called PROVIDENT (Prepositioning Optimized Strategies for Vaccines and Immunotherapeutics Against Diverse Emerging Infectious Threats), will link 13 teams in academia, government, and industry that will conduct four projects designed to: Discover and analyze virus-host interactions and the molecular mechanisms involved in viral disease; Design proteins to elicit antiviral immune responses and then evaluate and optimize those responses; Create "road maps" for quickly developing RNA vaccines against microbes with pandemic potential; and Map the antibody responses observed in people infected with viruses and use this knowledge to design vaccines and therapeutics. PROVIDENT builds on NIAID's 2021 Pandemic Preparedness Plan, a sweeping federal program designed to address the uncertainties inherent in safeguarding global health from communicable diseases. The two-part plan focuses on "priority pathogens" and "prototype pathogens"—basically, the knowns and unknowns of the viral world. Priority pathogens include viruses that are known to cause significant human illness or death, such as dengue virus and Ebola virus. Prototype pathogens—the focus of PROVIDENT—are representative viruses in families that have the potential to cause significant human disease. "We plan to select and study one or two prototype viruses from each family and then develop countermeasures that will work against as many viruses within that family as possible," said Dr. Chandran. "That strategy of quickly responding to an emerging virus with an approach and tools that have already been developed is what we mean by 'plug and play'." A part of PROVIDENT's strategy will be to carry out "sprints" in which countermeasures that are developed for the prototype pathogens will be tested against other viruses in the same family to see how well they work and to improve them. PROVIDENT will concentrate on three virus families: nairoviruses, transmitted by ticks (e.g., Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus), hantaviruses, borne by rodents and other small mammals (e.g., Sin Nombre virus and other agents causing hantavirus pulmonary syndrome), and paramyxoviruses, borne by bats and other mammals, including domesticated animals (e.g., Nipah virus). "This approach allowed researchers to move quickly during the COVID-19 pandemic," said Dr. Chandran. "What we had learned from previous outbreaks caused by coronaviruses, including SARS [severe acute respiratory syndrome] in 2002 and MERS [Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome] a decade later, helped us create diagnostics, vaccines, and therapeutics against SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19." "Recent outbreaks of mpox, Nipah virus, and Eastern equine encephalitis, among other viral infections, underscore the need for an even broader preparedness program," said Eva Mittler, Ph.D., research assistant professor at Einstein and leader of one of the PROVIDENT components. "We don't know what virus will cause the next pandemic." "The overarching goal of PROVIDENT and the other centers in the ReVAMPP Network is to coordinate their efforts to increase our odds of mounting a timely and effective response," added Dr. Chandran. Projects and cores in PROVIDENT will be led by: Kartik Chandran, PhD., Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY Eva Mittler, Ph.D., Einstein Jason McLellan, Ph.D., University of Texas, Austin, TX Courtney Cohen, Ph.D., U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, MD (USAMRIID) John Cooke, M.D., Ph.D., Houston Methodist Research Institute, Houston, TX (HMRI) Eva Harris, Ph.D. University of California-Berkeley, Berkeley, CA Stephanie Monticelli, Ph.D., USAMRIID Steven Bradfute, Ph.D., University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM Andrew Herbert, Ph.D., USAMRIID Jesse Erasmus, Ph.D., HDT Bio, Seattle, WA Jimmy Gollihar, Ph.D., HMRI The following scientists and institutions will also play critical roles in PROVIDENT: Zachary Bornholdt, PhD., Eitr Biologics, Inc., San Diego, CA Daniel Boutz, Ph.D., HMRI Giorgi Chakhunashvili, Ph.D., National Center for Disease Control and Public Health, Tbilisi, Georgia Catalina Florez, Ph.D., USAMRIID Bronwyn Gunn, Ph.D., Washington State University, Pullman, WA Andrew Horton, Ph.D., HMRI Amit Khandhar, Ph.D., HDT Bio Taishi Kimura, PhD., HDT Bio Jonathan Lai, Ph.D., Einstein Jodi McGill, Ph.D., Iowa State University, Ames, IA Crystal Moyer, Ph.D., Eitr Biologics Thomas Segall-Shapiro, Ph.D., HMRI Simone Sidoli, Ph.D., Einstein E. Taylor Stone, PhD., HDT Bio Francesca Taraballi, Ph.D., HMRI Cecilia Vial, Ph.D., Universidad del Desarollo, Santiago, Chile Pablo Vial, M.D., Universidad del Desarollo Zhongde Wang, Ph.D., Utah State University, Logan, UT Details of the PROVIDENT grant (1U19AI181977-01) issued by NIAID, part of the National Institutes of Health, can be found here. About Albert Einstein College of Medicine Albert Einstein College of Medicine is one of the nation's premier centers for research, medical education and clinical investigation. During the 2023-24 academic year, Einstein is home to 737 M.D. students, 209 Ph.D. students, 124 students in the combined M.D./Ph.D. program, and approximately 239 postdoctoral research fellows. The College of Medicine has more than 2,000 full-time faculty members located on the main campus and at its clinical affiliates. In 2023, Einstein received more than $192 million in awards from the National Institutes of Health. This includes the funding of major research centers at Einstein in cancer, aging, intellectual development disorders, diabetes, clinical and translational research, liver disease, and AIDS. Other areas where the College of Medicine is concentrating its efforts include developmental brain research, neuroscience, cardiac disease, and initiatives to reduce and eliminate ethnic and racial health disparities. Its partnership with Montefiore, the University Hospital and academic medical center for Einstein, advances clinical and translational research to accelerate the pace at which new discoveries become the treatments and therapies that benefit patients. For more information, please visit einsteinmed.edu, follow us on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and view us on YouTube. SOURCE Albert Einstein College of Medicine WANT YOUR COMPANY'S NEWS FEATURED ON PRNEWSWIRE.COM? 440k+ Newsrooms & Influencers 9k+ Digital Media Outlets 270k+ Journalists Opted In GET STARTED

WEDNESDAY, July 24, 2024 -- Arizona health officials are reporting an increase in hantavirus infections, which are spread by rodents and can cause severe respiratory illness. In a recent health alert , the Arizona Department of Health Services announced there have been seven confirmed cases and three deaths in that state in the past six months. While most hantavirus cases are reported in the Western and Southwestern United States, Arizona has one of highest numbers of reported infections in the country, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. From 2016-2022, there have been 11 hantavirus cases in Arizona , according to state health officials. “Hantavirus is a rare but important cause of serious, even fatal respiratory infection,” Dr. Aaron Glatt , chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in New York, told NBC News . “It is transmitted by various rodents, especially the deer mouse, and can cause mild disease, but it does cause fatal illness in a significant percentage of people who acquire this illness," he noted. Between 1993 and 2021, the CDC has reported a total of 850 hantavirus cases, or roughly 30 cases a year. Trish Lees, public information officer at Coconino County Health and Human Services in Arizona, told NBC News that the increase in hantavirus cases may be due to shifts in rodent populations. However, cases do tend to occur more in the summer because of increased rodent activity and people coming into contact with rodents more often, Lees explained. Climate change, such as the extreme heat waves that have been sweeping across the county this summer, may also be partly to blame, experts theorized. Dr. Camilo Mora , a professor in the department of geography and environment at the University of Hawaii at Mānoa, noted that people aren’t the only ones who seek shelter when it gets really wet or hot outside. “Many carrying-disease species get on the move with climate change -- so while for any specific case it is difficult to conclude the role of climate change, climate change has all the attributes to cause outbreaks of vector-borne diseases,” he told NBC News . The hot weather may have also worsened the illnesses after people were infected because of dehydration or other factors, Glatt added. Exactly how does hantavirus spread? Particles containing the virus get into the air when urine, saliva or poop from deer mice are stirred up. Once a person is infected, the virus can trigger hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS) . The syndrome was first recognized in 1993 after a mysterious illness infected members of a Navajo tribe who lived on the border of New Mexico and Arizona. Approximately 80% of people who were infected died at the time. Symptoms can appear one to eight weeks after exposure and include: Left untreated, the illness can infect the lungs and cause fluid to “leak” through blood vessels and fill up the respiratory tract. That, in turn, causes shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, according to the American Lung Association . Approximately 38% of people who develop lung symptoms may die from the disease. What can be done to guard against infection? “The best way to prevent infection with this illness is by carefully disinfecting and cleaning up any waste products from the rodents and by not coming into contact with them,” Glatt said. When entering a place that’s been closed up for a long time, take care to air out the space for 30 minutes, the Wyoming Department of Health warns. If the space is very dirty or full of mice, take extra care by wearing gloves, shoe covers, coveralls and N95 masks before cleaning. Whatever your topic of interest, subscribe to our newsletters to get the best of Drugs.com in your inbox.

Vancouver, British Columbia--(News - September 18, 2023) - Biocure Technology Inc. (CSE: CURE) ("CURE" or the "Company") announces that it has entered into an exclusive letter agreement dated September 8, 2023 with Atriva Therapeutics GmbH. ("Atriva") whereby the Company will acquire all of the issued and outstanding securities of Atriva (the "Transaction"). The Transaction will be a business combination completed by way of a share exchange, share purchase, amalgamation, arrangement, takeover bid, or other similar form of transaction. Upon the successful completion of the proposed Transaction, it is anticipated that the Company will carry on the business of Atriva (the "Resulting Issuer"). The Transaction constitutes a 'reverse takeover' of the Company. Transaction Summary Pursuant to the Transaction, the Company will issue common shares in its capital ("CURE Shares") to the shareholders in the capital of Atriva ("Atriva Shares") on the basis of a proposed exchange ratio such that, following the closing of the Transaction, on a fully diluted basis, approximately 75% of the securities of the Resulting Issuer will be held by current Atriva securityholders, together with subscribers in a concurrent financing, and approximately 25% of the securities of the Resulting Issuer will be held by current CURE shareholders. No advances to be made by the Company to Atriva are contemplated by the letter agreement. Atriva has agreed to pay to CURE a fee of $15,000 per month as an exclusivity fee pending completion of the Transaction for a minimum period of three months. A finder's fees of US$2,000,000 is payable in connection with the Transaction, to be paid through the issuance of CURE Shares at a deemed price to be determined by the parties but having regard for the terms of a concurrent private placement. The Transaction is subject to a number of terms and conditions, including, but not limited to, the completion of satisfactory due diligence, the parties entering into a definitive agreement with respect to the Transaction on or before 30 November, 2023 (such agreement to include representations, warranties, conditions and covenants typical for a transaction of this nature), the completion of a private placement by Atriva or CURE to raise gross proceeds of at least US$15,000,000 as further described below, the approval of the shareholders of the Company and Atriva, and the approval of the CSE and other applicable regulatory authorities. All dollar figures referenced herein, unless otherwise specified, refer to Canadian dollars. Trading Halt Trading in the CURE Shares has been halted and is expected to remain halted pending the satisfaction of the listing requirements of the CSE. There can be no assurance that trading of CURE shares will resume prior to the completion of the Transaction. Further details concerning the Transaction (including additional financial information) and other matters will be announced if and when a definitive agreement is reached. Information Concerning Atriva Atriva is incorporated under the laws of Germany and is a biopharmaceutical company developing host-cell-targeting antiviral and immunomodulatory therapies. The company was set up by a team of leading scientists in viral disease research and industry experts. Atriva aims to develop novel, highly efficacious and safe therapies for the treatment of severe diseases caused by RNA-viruses with a high unmet medical need and huge cost burden to healthcare systems around the world such as influenza, respiratory syncytial virus infections, dengue fever and hanta virus infections. Atriva's lead product zapnometinib (previously known as ATR-002) is a novel, host-cell-targeting, orally available small molecule drug inhibiting viral replication and rebalancing the body's immune response. Zapnometinib has successfully completed two Phase I clinical trials to demonstrate safety and tolerability in healthy volunteers (NCT04385420 and NCT05555823). A Phase II study (NCT04776044) to evaluate the efficacy and safety of zapnometinib in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19 obtained approval from Germany`s regulatory authority (BfArM) and generated very promising results. They underpin zapnometinib`s mechanism of action, efficacy against RNA-based virus infections and the safe use in humans. Going forward, Atriva will primarily focus resources on the development of zapnometinib for the treatment of patients hospitalized with severe influenza infections. Due to its mechanism of action with dual benefit - antiviral activity combined with immunomodulation - zapnometinib is uniquely positioned as a highly promising therapeutic candidate for the treatment of severe RNA-virus infections. By treating severe viral infections, Atriva strives to significantly reduce the number of critically sick patients, which would otherwise be referred to ICUs and require more invasive and vastly more expensive treatment options. Consequently, zapnometinib bears the potential to fundamentally improve the outcome of severe virus infections resulting in massive savings for entire societies and their national health care systems. Since inception, Atriva has secured over EUR 40 million in debt and equity investments from various investors and institutions including the European Investment Bank. Further details concerning the Transaction (including additional financial and shareholder information regarding Atriva) and other matters will be announced if and when a definitive agreement is reached. Board of Directors of Resulting Issuer Upon completion of the Transaction, the board of the Resulting Issuer shall be reconstituted to consist of a number of directors, the majority of which will be nominated by Atriva. Details regarding the anticipated directors and officers of the Resulting Issuer will be included in a subsequent release Private Placement Pursuant to the letter agreement, it is a condition of the Transaction that Atriva or CURE complete a private placement for aggregate gross proceeds of at least US$15,000,000 on terms to be determined. Additional details concerning the terms of the private placement will be provided in a subsequent press release. The Resulting Issuer intends to use the net proceeds of the private placement to fund the Transaction, to develop its business and for working capital. This news release does not constitute an offer to sell and is not a solicitation of an offer to buy any securities in the United States. The securities of the Company and BCBC have not been and will not be registered under the United States Securities Act of 1933, as amended (the "U.S. Securities Act") or any state securities laws and may not be offered or sold within the United States or to U.S. Persons unless registered under the U.S. Securities Act and applicable state securities laws unless pursuant to an exemption from such registration. Shareholder Meeting Approval for the Transaction will be sought from the Company's shareholders on a date to be determined. Name Change Upon completion of the Transaction, the Company intends to change its name to "Atriva Therapeutics Inc." and the parties expect that the CSE will assign a new trading symbol for the Resulting Issuer. Shares for Debt As an additional re-organizational step for the Transaction, the Company plans to settle approximately $500,000 in debt owed to various parties through the issuance of common shares of the Company at a price of $0.03 per share (the "Settlement Shares"), subject to the approval of the CSE. Portions of the indebtedness are expected to be settled with members of the Company's management team and will constitute a "related party transaction" as defined in MI 61-101. The Settlement Shares will be subject to applicable resale restrictions under securities laws. Corporate Update The Company also reports that Bjorn Cocholovius has resigned from his role as President. The Company wishes Mr. Cocholovius well in his other endeavors. Forward-Looking Statements This news release contains certain "forward looking statements" including, for example, statements relating to the completion of the Transaction and Private Placement and the Resulting Issuer's anticipated share capital. Such forward-looking statements involve risks and uncertainties, both known and unknown. The results or events depicted in these forward-looking statements may differ materially from actual results or events. In addition to other factors and assumptions which may be identified herein, assumptions have been made regarding and are implicit in, among other things: receipt of regulatory approvals, the Company's ability to complete the Transaction and Private Placement, the state of the capital markets, the ability of the Resulting Issuer to successfully manage the risks inherent in pursuing business opportunities in the cannabis industry, and the ability of the Resulting Issuer to obtain qualified staff, equipment and services in a timely and cost efficient manner to develop its business. Any forward-looking statement reflects information available to the Company as of the date of this news release and, except as may be required by applicable securities laws, the Company disclaims any intent or obligation to update any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or results or otherwise. ON BEHALF OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS /S/ "Simon Cheng" CEO and Director For further information, please contact: Biocure Technology Inc. Telephone: 604-609-7146, or info@biocuretech.com Neither the Canadian Securities Exchange (the "CSE") nor the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada) accepts responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. Completion of the Transaction is subject to a number of conditions, including stock exchange acceptance and shareholder approval. The Transaction cannot close until the required shareholder approval is obtained. There can be no assurance that the Transaction will be completed as proposed or at all. Investors are cautioned that, except as disclosed in the Information Circular and Listing Statement to be prepared in connection with the Transaction, any information released or received with respect to the Transaction may not be accurate or complete and should not be relied upon. Trading in the securities of the Company should be considered highly speculative. The Canadian Securities Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of the proposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents of this press release To view the source version of this press release, please visit