Innovative Antiviral Defense With New CRISPR Tool

This important achievement represents a significant step towards combating pandemics and strengthening defenses against future outbreaks

16-Apr-2024 - The rise of RNA viruses like SARS-CoV-2 highlights the need for new ways to fight them. RNA-targeting tools like CRISPR/Cas13 are powerful but inefficient in the cytoplasm of cells, where many RNA viruses replicate. Scientists from Helmholtz Munich and the Technical University Munich (TUM) have ...

The virus hackers: RNAi therapy for viral respiratory diseases

Inhalation as a silver bullet

05-Feb-2024 - A research team from the Fraunhofer Institute for Toxicology and Experimental Medicine ITEM and the Hannover Medical School (MHH) have made significant progress in developing a new antiviral therapy. The drug, which is inhaled, uses RNAi to target and deactivate parainfluenza viruses before they ...

SARS-CoV-2: Antiviral treatment promotes emergence of new variants

Analysis of genomic diversity in prolonged infections

19-Aug-2022 - Do patients with prolonged infections contribute to the emergence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants? A research team from the Leibniz Institute of Virology (LIV) and the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf (UKE) has investigated this question in more detail and has now been able to show that it ...

Atriva Therapeutics announces first closing of series A financing round

04-Jan-2019 - Atriva Therapeutics, a biopharmaceutical company pioneering the development of host-targeting antiviral therapies, announced the first closing in its ongoing series A financing round lead by Meneldor and High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). The Company founders and management joined the round, also. ...

Specific protein may reduce inflammation, improve survival during the flu

09-Feb-2018 - GM-CSF, a protein that modifies the immune response to the flu, may also help reduce lung inflammation and improve survival during influenza, according to Penn State researchers. The researchers studied the survival and lung function of mice with influenza in the lab. They found that the mice ...

A new way to treat HIV identified

28-Aug-2017 - Medical treatment that targets human proteins rather than ever-mutating viruses may one day help HIV-positive people whose bodies have built a resistance to "cocktails" currently used to keep them healthy, according to a Keck School of Medicine of USC researcher. I-Chueh Huang has spent 13 years ...

Scientific methods identify potential antivirals against chikungunya

12-Oct-2016 - Chikungunya virus has caused two recent massive outbreaks sickening millions of people. Now a team of researchers has shown that several existing compounds have potent activity against the critical CHIKV protease enzyme. Chikungunya is a mosquito-born, largely tropical disease which can cause ...

New research explains why HIV is not cleared by the immune system

15-Apr-2016 - Scientists at the University of North Carolina (UNC) School of Medicine and Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute (SBP) have identified a human (host) protein that weakens the immune response to HIV and other viruses. The findings have important implications for improving HIV ...