National network for pandemic preparedness grows

COVID-19 Coronavirus Molecules Swarming US Flag - Health Crisis.

Albert Einstein College of Medicine, located in Bronx, New York, has received a five-year, $14 million per year grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The grant is part of NIAID’s new Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness (ReVAMPP) Network, and it will allow the school to help lead the development of plug-and-play vaccines and antibody-based therapies against a wide range of emerging viruses.

PROVIDENT (Prepositioning Optimized Strategies for Vaccines and Immunotherapies Against Diverse Emerging Infectious Threats) includes a consortium of researchers who will collaborate on four projects with specific outcomes.

  • 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.
  • Map the antibody responses observed in people infected with viruses and use this knowledge to design vaccines and therapeutics. 

Kartik Chandran, PhDKartik Chandran, PhDAlbert Einstein College of Medicine“COVID-19 taught us a lot about pandemic preparedness, and we want to make sure we build on what worked well,” said principal investigator Kartik Chandran, PhD, in a press release. “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.”

NIAID’s 2021 Pandemic Preparedness Plan, a widespread federal program aimed to advance safeguarding of global health from communicable diseases, is the foundation for PROVIDENT. The Einstein-led research group will focus on prototype pathogens, families of viruses that have the potential to cause substantial human disease.

“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,’” said Dr. Chandran, who is professor of microbiology and immunology, the Gertrude and David Feinson Chair in Medicine and the Harold and Muriel Block Faculty Scholar in Virology at Einstein. “A part of PROVIDENT’s strategy will be to carry our ‘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.”

Researchers will use prior work, such as diagnostics, immunizations and therapeutics that were developed for other infectious diseases, to study and advance available strategies and resources. The three virus families that PROVIDENT will concentrate on are:

  • Nairoviruses, which are transmitted by ticks (e.g., Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus)
  • Hantaviruses, which are borne by rodents and other small mammals (e.g., Sin Nombre virus)
  • Paramyxoviruses, which are borne by bats and other mammals or domesticated animals (e.g., Nipah virus)

“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, PhD, research assistant professor at Einstein and leader of one of the PROVIDENT components. “We don’t know what virus will cause the next pandemic.”

Dr. Chandran said PROVIDENT will coordinate its research efforts with the other centers in the ReVAMPP Network and that its central goal is to “increase our odds of mounting a timely and effective response.”

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