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Seventeen years after the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) global epidemic, its shadow lingers in an ongoing outbreak of mysterious pneumonia cases in China, which an international group of researchers says showcase the potential for pathogens to appear suddenly and wreak deadly global... Read More »
The U.S. Navy recently awarded Lockheed Martin a $13.9 million engineering services contract to continue supporting engineering and fielding efforts for the Surface Electronic Warfare Improvement Program (SEWIP).
The contract is part of a five-year agreement that will total $75 million if all... Read More »
CARB-X has awarded $3.2 million to Trellis Bioscience and dangled the possibility of $3.8 million more for the creation of a monoclonal antibody that can disrupt superbugs’ protective coating.
The bacteria that become superbugs have a biofilm coating that protects them from antibiotics. By... Read More »
The Partnership for Research on Ebola Vaccination (PREVAC) recently launched a new project called PREVAC-UP, which will evaluate three Ebola vaccine regimens for five years after vaccination.
The study will assess several factors within these treatments: their long-term safety, the durability... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. got the go-ahead from the European Medicines Agency (EMA) to pursue its proposed development plan for its chikungunya virus vaccine candidate.
The company has proposed conducting a Phase 3 trial using Serum Neutralizing Antibodies (SNA) to predict clinical benefit of... Read More »
DARPA’s Subterranean Challenge Urban Circuit is looking to change the nature of subterranean warfare, and as of last week, 17 teams have qualified to demonstrate breakthroughs and solutions to existing problems.
Operating underground is, by its nature, highly challenging for humans. Both... Read More »
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation awarded a $1.4 million grant to the International Vaccine Institute (IVI) to ensure standards and reagents are available to low-cost oral cholera vaccine (OCV) manufacturers.
International standardization in the manufacturing and release of OCV will... Read More »
City of Annapolis, Md., personnel recently espoused the benefits of FirstNet, the public safety broadband network designed to enhance public safety communications as a means of protecting residents and visitors.
The Annapolis Police Department (APD), Public Works, the Office of Emergency... Read More »
Backed by a $3 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, researchers from the University of Dundee will push the LEADS4TB program to find new treatment options over the next three years.
"We want to improve how we do drug discovery for TB, and identify new candidate drugs to treat... Read More »
A new study recently published by researchers at the Zoonotic Bornavirus Consortium (ZooBoCo) theorized that, in the wake of eight new Borna disease virus linked deaths, the disease may have been operating unnoticed for decades behind the scenes.
Borna is a virus that leaps from shrews to... Read More »
A study created by the Institute for Biomedical Sciences at Georgia State University and funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) has demonstrated the promise of a new, universal flu vaccine, displaying long-lasting protection against six influenza viruses.
The... Read More »
The non-profit Combating Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) announced this week that $1.4 million will be awarded to the British company Centauri Therapeutics, for a new platform in the fight against drug-resistant bacteria.
The platform is under development but... Read More »
BAE Systems recently secured a $175 million Navy contract to modernize the USS Vicksburg (CG 69) guided-missile cruiser.
The Vicksburg will undergo 18 months of work at the company’s shipyard in Norfolk, Virginia, officials said, which serves as the ship’s homeport.
“Over the last few... Read More »
Lockheed Martin has received a $1.9 billion F-35 Joint Program Office contract to support operations and sustainment of the global F-35 fleet in 2020.
“The F-35 continues to deliver exceptional capabilities to the field, and this contract ensures F-35s are mission ready to meet warfighter... Read More »
Though everything might appear normal at first for Zika victims in the womb, according to a new report from a multi-institutional research group led by Children’s National Hospital, the long-term effects on Zika-exposed infants can fly under the radar.
In fact, in 77 out of 82 lab-confirmed... Read More »
Curtiss-Wright Corp., a global company that provides highly engineered products and services to defense, industrial, commercial, and energy clients, recently completed a $132 million cash acquisition of 901D Holdings.
901D designs and manufactures mission-critical integrated electronic systems,... Read More »
In its last weekly report of the year, covering Dec. 18 to Dec. 31, 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported that 29 new confirmed cases of Ebola virus disease were logged in the North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The cases spread across four health... Read More »
Lockheed Martin exceeded its joint government and industry delivery goal for 2019, delivering 134 F-35 aircraft.
The goal for the year was 131 aircraft. The deliveries represent a 200 percent production increase from 2016 and a 47 percent increase from 2018.
"This achievement is a testament... Read More »
Motorola Solutions was awarded a $23.8 million contract by the U.S. Department of Defense to sustain the U.S. Navy’s enterprise land mobile radio (LMR) system.
The LMR system is used to coordinate the deployment of the first responder community at Navy bases. The LMR system connects Navy... Read More »
Researchers from the University of California, Davis, and the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) have discovered that outbreaks of human disease may be due to genetic mutations and that viruses may change as they expand their geographic range.
The researchers studied how the Zika... Read More »
BAE Systems has secured a $2.68 billion Navy contract for indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity purchase of thousands of additional Advanced precision kill weapon system (APKWS) Laser-Guided Rockets.
“Our armed forces customers are looking to apply just the right amount of force at the right... Read More »
The announcement last week that antibiotic maker Melinta had descended into Chapter 11 bankruptcy highlighted the problems facing the antibiotic industry, as well as the danger corporate issues could cast over medication availability.
Melinta was the second antibiotic producer to file for... Read More »
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) established the Infectious Diseases Clinical Research Consortium.
This leadership consortium will encompass NIAID’s Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation Units (VTEUs). NIAID, which is part of the National Institute of Health (NIH),... Read More »
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) has delivered a cautious appraisal of the federal spending bill for FY 2020, noting that while it will strengthen public health and research efforts, it undercuts -- at Americans’ peril -- HIV investment and immunization efforts, among... Read More »
Five U.S. companies joined a coalition of pharmaceutical companies that advocates for public policies and funding to support medical countermeasures to prevent and respond to a variety of threats.
Opiant, Roche Diagnostics, SCYNEXIS, Tonix, and Venatorx are the five newest members of this... Read More »
Recent tests of an experimental Zika virus vaccine in rhesus macaques, a primate, show the vaccine lowered levels of virus in pregnant monkeys and improved fetal outcomes, according to a new study in Science Translational Medicine.
Zika is transmitted via mosquitoes and through sex. It causes... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced Thursday the approval of a vaccine created by Merck & Co., Inc. as a preventative measure against the Zaire strain of the Ebola virus in individuals 18 years of age or older.
In 2018, the World Health Organization and the Democratic Republic... Read More »
Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) | bio hosted two events during the 2019 Biological Weapons Convention Meeting of States Parties in Geneva, Switzerland, earlier this month.
A panel of international biosecurity experts was the focus of the first event. The experts discussed efforts to reduce... Read More »
Bolstering what could become the first antibiotic developed and acquired by Project BioShield to treat drug-resistant bioterrorism agents, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) intends to supply up to $169 million to Paratek Pharmaceuticals, Inc. over the next five years.
The... Read More »
The Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) recently awarded BAE Systems a more than $17 billion, 10-year multiple award indefinite delivery/indefinite quantity (IDIQ) contract for Solutions for Intelligence Analysis 3 (SIA 3).
An IDIQ contract is awarded when the U.S. General Services Administration... Read More »
Researchers from Princeton University have found that climate change has the potential to make respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) outbreaks less severe but more common in high-risk areas.
The studies consisted of climate condition influence on annual outbreaks of RSV in the United States and... Read More »
The U.S. House Appropriations Committee on Monday released the domestic priorities and international assistance appropriations minibus, which includes ramped-up final budget amounts for several biodefense-related items, including the Strategic National Stockpile.
In releasing the text of the... Read More »
Researchers from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario, recently developed a self-cleaning, plastic surface that repels bacteria.
The goal is to prevent the transfer of dangerous bacteria and antibiotic-resistant superbugs.
The surface is a treated form of conventional transparent wrap... Read More »
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), long a source of concerted health efforts to combat one of the largest Ebola outbreaks ever recorded, experienced a sharp increase in cases last week -- and many may be linked to an individual’s reinfection.
In all, 27 new cases were confirmed last... Read More »
One of the most searing memories Thomas Frieden had during the 2014 West African Ebola outbreak was one in which he deeply questioned the international community’s effectiveness in supporting the health infrastructure of Ebola-plagued nations.
Then head of the Centers for Disease Control and... Read More »
