· CEPI to provide up to $4.98 USD million to Houston Methodist Research Institute-led consortium to use artificial intelligence for design of vaccines to fight diseases with pandemic potential.
· The project will support a consortium, led by HMRI, to design potential antigenic targets for up to 10 priority virus families with epidemic or pandemic potential. Laboratory-based tests will then be used to verify antigen designs for possible further development.
· Consortium will include The University of Texas, Austin, The University of Texas Medical Branch, J Craig Venter Research Institute, La Jolla Institute, and Argonne National Laboratory (University of Chicago).
CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, and the Houston Methodist Research Institute (HMRI), have today announced a partnership to combine cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) technology with established laboratory techniques to speed up development of future vaccines against novel viral threats (also known as Disease X).
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Our Immune Systems Blanket SARS-CoV-2 Spike Protein with Antibodies
AUSTIN, Texas – The most complete picture yet is coming into focus of how antibodies produced in people who effectively fight off SARS-CoV-2 work to neutralize the part of the virus responsible for causing infection. In the journal Science, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin describe the finding, which represents good news for designing the next generation of vaccines to protect against variants of the virus or future emerging coronaviruses.
Previous research focused on one group of antibodies that target the most obvious part of the coronavirus’s spike protein, called the receptor-binding domain (RBD). Because the RBD is the part of the spike that attaches directly to human cells and enables the virus to infect them, it was rightly assumed to be a primary target of the immune system. But, testing blood plasma samples from four people who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infections, the resear
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IMAGE: An analysis of blood plasma samples from four people who recovered from SARS-CoV-2 infectionsshows that most of the antibodies circulating in the blood on average, about 84% target. view more
Credit: University of Texas at Austin
The most complete picture yet is coming into focus of how antibodies produced in people who effectively fight off SARS-CoV-2 work to neutralize the part of the virus responsible for causing infection. In the journal
Science, researchers at The University of Texas at Austin describe the finding, which represents good news for designing the next generation of vaccines to protect against variants of the virus or future emerging coronaviruses.
Houston Methodist finds multiple cases of significant coronavirus mutations, including Brazil strain
Infectious disease pathologists have sequenced more than 20,000 genomes of SARS-CoV-2 virus
Newswise HOUSTON-(March 2, 2021) – Houston Methodist discovered 28 cases of coronavirus variants in its latest batches of virus genomes sequenced from patients with positive COVID-19 tests, including what might be the state’s first confirmation of four cases of the Brazil variant known as P.1. Houston is the first city in the U.S. to have all the major variants documented by genome sequencing.
“There is evidence to indicate that the Brazil P.1 variant may spread faster and be resistant to certain vaccines and monoclonal antibody therapies – much like the South Africa variant known as B.1.351 – and may still be able to cause disease in some people who are inoculated with Pfizer or Moderna vaccines,” said James M. Musser, M.D., Ph.D., chair of the Department of Pathology and Geno