Research
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 »
Another COVID-19 vaccine may soon be on the way: Sanofi and GSK began enrollment for a phase three, global clinical study of their adjuvanted recombinant-protein vaccine candidate, with the anticipation it could be approved by the end of the year.
Approval will, of course, depend on results, and... Read More »
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), the COVID-19 pandemic situation is stabilizing in nations with advanced vaccination programs, but it is surging in other, less equipped areas, demanding action lest the future become a repeat of present failures.
WHO urges the distribution of 2... Read More »
A new collaborative effort between Battelle, a science and technology research and development firm headquartered in Columbus, Ohio; the Ohio State University; and Northwestern University hopes to combat the “infodemic” of false and misleading information online surrounding the COVID-19... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) awarded $7.1 million grant funding to an Oxford University study assessing if COVID-19 vaccine regimens can be mixed.
These funds will complement $3 million of funding already granted from the U.K. government and support from the... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) added another tool to the fight against COVID-19 this week, granting emergency use authorization (EUA) to the monoclonal antibody therapy sotrovimab for use against mild to moderate COVID-19 cases in those 12 years and older.
The EUA was granted to... Read More »
The nonprofit Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) | bio virtually convened an interdisciplinary group of experts and world leaders earlier this month to push for a global organization to reduce biotechnology risks, promote biosecurity and strengthen international oversight of life sciences... Read More »
Thanks to a $400,000 grant from The Rockefeller Foundation, the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security will document, evaluate and spread information on large-scale health successes among the COVID-19 response in low and middle-income nations over the past year.
This information will be used... Read More »
Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) officials said the organization has expanded its partnership with SK bioscience to develop a vaccine to combat SARS-CoV-2 and variants of concern.
The agreement calls for CEPI to earmark up to $173.4 million for SK bioscience's to COVID-19... Read More »
Plans are underway to submit the Moderna, Inc. COVID-19 vaccine to regulators in early June to expand its use, following positive results from a Phase 2/3 study that distributed the vaccine among adolescents aged 12 to 17 years old.
The vaccine, known as mRNA-1273, met its primary immunogenicity... Read More »
As part of a new Memorandum of Understanding between the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Swiss Confederation, the first facility in the WHO BioHub System was agreed to this week.
Such facilities, first announced in November 2020, will serve as centers for reception, sequencing, storage,... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) officials said the agency has partnered with South Korea to conduct a civil aviation security technology field demonstration.
DHS personnel said the agreement with the Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport of... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) officials said the agency is partnering with the U.S. Coast Guard (USCG), seeking large capacity floating device solutions.
To that end, the entities will conduct a virtual Industry Day on May 25, 2021, to discuss the... Read More »
The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) launched a new survey this week to assess the vaccine manufacturing capacity and capabilities of Africa, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America, to better inform ahead of future epidemics.
“While incredible efforts were... Read More »
Up to $4.1 million in non-dilutive funding from nonprofit CARB-X was announced this week for Summit Therapeutics to help develop a first-in-class antibiotic to treat multidrug-resistant infections, and specifically, carbapenem-resistant Enterobacteriaceae (CRE) infections.
This funding will aid... Read More »
A Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, Inc.-created drug cocktail of casirivimab with imdevimab, REGEN-COV, was recently shown to provide a 70 percent reduced risk of hospitalization or death and shortened symptom duration in non-hospitalized patients afflicted with COVID-19.
The drug cocktail is meant... Read More »
