Research
On Tuesday, the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) awarded $2.99 million in grant funding for new interoperable public safety communication systems.
Initially funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology... Read More »
A new policy brief released this week by U.S. Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC) assessed the role of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response (ASPR) during the COVID-19 pandemic and concluded that reforms are necessary both within the agency and beyond to improve federal pandemic... Read More »
Physical Sciences Inc. (PSI), based in Andover, Mass., and Alakai Defense Systems, Inc. (Alakai), based in Largo, Fla., recently announced that they have secured funding from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Program.
The businesses, which... Read More »
A small, veteran-owned business in Florida, Bloodstone Division, LLC, earned a $105,877 award from the United States Department of Homeland Security’s Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) to fund the development of an antiviral disinfectant for COVID-19 and beyond.
Traditional disinfecting... Read More »
University of North Carolina (UNC) Gillings School of Global Public Health researchers are exploring the potential of a universal vaccine protecting mice against other coronaviruses and variants.
Scientists noted coronaviruses continue to be a threat after causing the SARS outbreak 18 years ago,... Read More »
A new report from the Global Coalition on Aging (GCOA) and the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA), a first of its kind known as the AMR Preparedness Index, provides an evaluation and roadmap for the 11 largest global economies and their efforts to tackle rising cases of antimicrobial... Read More »
Under an expanded agreement with Moderna, Inc., the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) announced this week that it will provide program management support and up to $144 million for the Phase 2/3 clinical trial of its COVID-19 vaccine on children.
Also known as... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced Tuesday that the Biden Administration would invest more than $3 billion from the American Rescue Plan to discover, develop, and manufacture antiviral COVID-19 medicines.
The investment is part of the administration’s “whole of... Read More »
A new phase one clinical trial kicked off this week for an mRNA-based vaccine against seasonal influenza -- specifically the A/H3N2 strain -- cooperatively developed by Sanofi Pasteur and Translate Bio.
With interim data expected by the end of the year, the trial will chart both safety and... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) and its COVAX partners announced they are working with a South African consortium to establish a COVID mRNA vaccine technology transfer hub.
The consortium, comprising Biovac, Afrigen Biologics and Vaccines, a network of African universities, and the Africa... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) officials are espousing the benefits of a four-part virtual content series highlighting research and threat preparation collaboration.
The Virtual Whole-of-Government R&D Showcase focuses on efforts to mobilize... Read More »
As a result of phase three COMET-ICE trial data, GlaxoSmithKline plc and Vir Biotechnology, Inc. announced this week that they will push forward with sotrovimab, an investigational monoclonal antibody treatment for SARS-CoV-2.
Primary efficacy analysis of 1,057 patients who participated in the... Read More »
A combined supplement from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) last week spread $200 million among 59 jurisdiction public health programs to expand the disease intervention specialists (DIS) workforce.
This funding is... Read More »
A novel mRNA vaccine developed to protect against malaria has demonstrated full defense against the disease in mice, according to the latest research published in npj Vaccines.
Developed by joint efforts from Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR), the Naval Medical Research Center, the... Read More »
The results of a Johns Hopkins-led study into the potential causes of increased transmission among certain SARS-CoV-2 variants has determined that at least two of these variants showed no evidence of higher viral loads but less likelihood of carriers presenting as asymptomatic.
Utilizing whole... Read More »
Stratatech Corporation and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) achieved major milestones this week with the announcement of U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for StrataGraft, a treatment for adults with thermal burns.
Stratagraft is specifically... Read More »
A new antibody testing study conducted by the National Institutes of Health’s (NIH) All of Us Research Program has just altered the timeline for SARS-CoV-2 growth in the United States, revealing the viral cause of COVID-19 may have been in-country nearly a month earlier than established.
Until... Read More »
With $2.38 million in grant support from a new contract with the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) and a National Institute of General Medical Sciences supplement, LSU Health New Orleans intends to form partnerships to sequence SARS-CoV-2 variants.
A team led by Dr. Lucio Miele, professor and... Read More »
U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas and Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti toured Thursday the Los Angeles Cyber Lab to receive a briefing on its operational capabilities.
The lab, funded by public-private partnerships, was established in 2017 by the Mayor’s office to better... Read More »
A fourth strong contender appears to have emerged for COVID-19 vaccines in the United States, as this week’s results from the Phase 3 PREVENT-19 trial of the Novavax, Inc. COVID-19 demonstrated a 90 percent overall efficacy against the disease.
The NVX-CoV2373 vaccine fully protected against... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) announced Thursday that it had successfully tested early wildfire detection technology prototypes this week in California.
Conducted during a controlled, prescribed burn at the Dye Creek Preserve near Red... Read More »
Following positive test results, Moderna, Inc. filed last week with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expand the scope of its COVID-19 vaccine’s emergency use authorization (EUA) to include adolescents between 12 and 18 years old.
This expansion push follows the results of a... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) will provide $706,534 in funding for Dascena, Inc. to further its COViage system, potentially expanding its machine learning capabilities to predict deteriorating health among hospitalized COVID-19 patients.
Hospitalized COVID-19... Read More »
The World Health Organization (WHO) gained more than 3 million lab-confirmed infection case reports in response -- a record figure -- in response to a call issued last year for input into the Global Antimicrobial Resistance and Use Surveillance System (GLASS).
These country-by-country reports... Read More »
A new agreement struck between the Biden administration and Merck & Co. will provide the U.S. government with 1.7 million courses of the company’s investigational COVID-19 antiviral treatment, molnupiravir.
This agreement is contingent upon either emergency use authorization (EUA) or approval... Read More »
A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) demonstrated continuing good news for mRNA COVID-19 vaccines, crediting them with reducing the risk of infection by 91 percent for those fully vaccinated by either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines.
While previous... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval of Chimerix, Inc.’s smallpox therapeutic TEMBEXA last week marked a medical achievement and a milestone for the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
BARDA itself was created in 2006. It began collaborating with... Read More »
A professor at Georgia State University’s Institute for Biomedical Sciences, Dr. Sang-Moo Kang, received a five-year, $2.7 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) last week for a study of seasonal and universal vaccination in elderly... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Bennie G. Thompson (D-MS), Homeland Security Committee Chairman; Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY), Oversight and Reform Committee Chairwoman; John Katko (R-NY), Homeland Security Committee Ranking Member, and James Comer (R-KY), Oversight and Reform Committee Ranking Member, announced the... Read More »
According to new research from National Institutes of Health (NIH) scientists at the Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the oral antiviral drug TEMPOL could limit SARS-CoV-2 infection capabilities.
Though still considered experimental, the drug’s... Read More »
Air Force officials said the branch has awarded a $91.8 million task order to KBR, Inc. to provide engineering services for aircraft and other system components.
The scope of work will involve elements managed by the 448th Supply Chain Management Wing (SCMW), focusing on research, analysis, and... Read More »
With $4.2 million in funding from the Henry Jackson Foundation and a new partnership with the U.S. Naval Medical Research Center (NMRC), Centivax Inc. intends to pursue phase one clinical development of Centi-B9, a broad-spectrum injectable for treating SARS-CoV-2.
Unlike other vaccines and... Read More »
Basel, Switzerland-based pharmaceutical company BioVersys has secured a $4.35 million funding allotment from CARB-X to develop new antibiotics to treat life-threatening infections caused by ESKAPE pathogens.
The pathogens are identified as bacteria that have developed resistance to most current,... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has launched its first venture capital public-private partnership dedicated to developing technologies and medical products for public health emergencies with the nonprofit Global Health Investment Corporation (GHIC).
“While we tackle the... Read More »
Following its development by scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) began a human, phase one clinical trial to determine the safety and immunogenicity of a nanoparticle-based, universal influenza... Read More »
