Research
The World Health Organization (WHO) hosted a virtual forum last week to identify knowledge gaps and set research priorities for vaccines against COVID-19.
At the forum – attended by more than 2,800 scientists from 130 countries – the participants discussed the safety and efficacy of existing... Read More »
With £2.5 million in funding from UK Research and Innovation, an arm of the government, the G2P-UK National Virology Consortium has been founded to study the threats posed by new SARS-CoV-2 variants increasingly cropping up across the world.
The effects of these mutations have yet to be fully... Read More »
The Departments of Defense (DoD) and Health and Human Services (HHS) awarded $69.3 million to CONTINUUS Pharmaceuticals Inc. last week to support the development of domestic production capability for critical medicines using integrated continuous manufacturing (ICM) technology.
ICM is a... Read More »
Northrop Grumman Corporation's Integrated Air and Missile Defense Battle Command System (IBCS), which the company developed with the Army, would proceed with low rate initial production (LRIP).
The action stems from a successful Milestone C decision for the program, which the Department of... Read More »
The Rockefeller Foundation seeks to boost vaccination efforts in the United States with a $30 million new advance market commitment (AMC) with Thermo Fisher Scientific to procure and stock COVID-19 tests.
The investment will provide guaranteed demand to test manufacturers. In return, the stock... Read More »
The Israel-U.S. Binational Industrial Research and Development (BIRD) Foundation has awarded two projects a total of $1.5 million to address homeland security threat detection and 3D mapping technologies.
The BIRD Homeland Security (HLS) program is a joint initiative funded by the Department of... Read More »
The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) and U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) will be able to purchase more than 2 million additional COVID-19 antibody treatments due to modifications to an existing agreement with Eli Lilly and Company.
The therapeutic in question,... Read More »
As DiaSorin Molecular LLC works to create a combination diagnostic for differentiating between influenza A/B and COVID-19, it will receive funding, technical assistance, and the expertise of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA).
The announcement, made this week,... Read More »
A Center for Advanced Defense Studies (C4ADS) and Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) report has determined a blueprint for identifying high-risk or illicit nuclear trade activities at scale.
Signals in the Noise: Preventing Nuclear Proliferation with Machine Learning & Publicly Available... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) is working with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) to improve the detection of synthetic opioids.
Specifically, as part of this initiative, DHS and PNNL will assess the performance of field... Read More »
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has partnered with NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (NASA JPL) to develop firefighter tracking technology.
The effort would allow first responders to locate team members in burning buildings more accurately.... Read More »
Moderna, Inc. will expand its vaccine efforts with three new development programs targeting mRNA vaccines for HIV, Nipah, and four seasonal flu viruses.
The company also intends to expand its respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine program to older adults.
This is thanks to the... Read More »
As a new, more infectious strain of SARS-CoV-2 spreads further from the United Kingdom and across the United States, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is advising that its impact on molecular tests will likely be low, with three approved tests currently affected.
The variant, known as... Read More »
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is exploring the development of next-generation night-vision goggle (NVG) technology.
The Enhanced Night Vision in eyeglass form (ENVision) program allows the DSO seeks to create lightweight NVGs offering a... Read More »
Both Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) DRIVe and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) put out a call this week for comments on potential evaluation criteria and testing protocols for an improved mask design challenge.
Input will help... Read More »
A collaboration and services agreement united Bayer and CureVac N.V. this week in support of CureVac’s new class mRNA-based medicines, particularly its COVID-19 vaccine candidate CVnCoV.
Under the agreement, Bayer will support development, supply, and key territory operations through its... Read More »
A new report from the LaJolla Institute for Immunology has revealed that almost all survivors of COVID-19 have the immune cells necessary to fight re-infection.
Based on analyses of blood samples from 188 COVID-19 patients, the findings suggest that the immune system learns to fight specific... Read More »
The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) has launched a multi-year research effort officials said is designed to automate broad-area search of multi-source satellite imagery.
The Space-based Machine Automated Recognition Technique (SMART) program detects, monitors, and... Read More »
Under a $13.5 million contract, Bavarian Nordic A/S announced this week that it would provide supplies of its IMVANEX smallpox vaccine to three European governments in the first half of 2021.
“We are pleased to expand our sales of smallpox vaccines to other countries,” Paul Chaplin,... Read More »
ACTIV-2, a study sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), has begun phase 2/3 trials to evaluate two monoclonal antibody therapies that could help those with mild or moderate cases of COVID-19.
The twin antibodies are known as BRII-196 and BRII-198, both... Read More »
A Transportation Security Administration (TSA) report assessing the 2020 calendar year detailed the implementation of modifications across more than 440 federalized airports nationwide amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Between Jan. 1 and Dec. 31, 2020, the agency screened a total of approximately 324... Read More »
Laura McGill has been named Sandia National Laboratories deputy labs director and will lead its nuclear deterrence programs to support safety, security, and reliability excellence.
“I’m honored to join Sandia Labs and the tradition of serving the national security mission,” McGill said.... Read More »
While many antibody tests today fail to identify neutralizing antibodies, Dr. Benjamin Larimer, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB), has developed a diagnostic capable of accurately and quickly identifying these antibodies and showing people’s potential immunity to... Read More »
Department of Homeland Security (DHS) officials have released the Fiscal Year 2020 Enforcement Lifecycle Report, an analysis of enforcement outcomes for aliens encountered at the Southwest Border.
The report covers Fiscal Years 2014 through 2019. The Office of Immigration Statistics (OIS)... Read More »
A peer-reviewed report chronicling the phase three trial data of mRNA-1273, Moderna, Inc.’s COVID-19 vaccine, was released in the New England Journal of Medicine last week and confirmed its 94.1 percent efficacy in preventing COVID-19.
Distribution of the vaccine has already begun in the... Read More »
CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations, is collaborating with an India-based pharmaceutical company to develop a COVID-19 subunit vaccine candidate.
The partnership is with Biological E Limited, or Bio E, a Hyderabad-based vaccine and pharmaceutical company. CEPI will... Read More »
The first U.S. case of a new strain of COVID-19 that originated in the U.K. has been confirmed in Colorado’s Elbert County, according to the Colorado State Laboratory.
The variant has cropped up in numerous locations throughout the world since its recent discovery -- and rapid spread -- in the... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions and Mount Sinai Health System began a program to evaluate Emergent’s COVID-19 Human Hyperimmune Globulin (COVID-HIG) candidate for phase one trials of its preventative capabilities among individuals at high risk of exposure.
“Emergent is pleased to partner with Mount... Read More »
In an effort funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) and the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), Novavax, Inc. has begun enrolling volunteers for a phase three trial of NVX-CoV2373, a COVID-19 vaccine candidate.
Volunteers can be... Read More »
Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officials noted operational successes within its fiscal year 2020 annual report, focusing on immigration laws enforcement and customs and immigration violation investigations.
“The men and women who represent ICE have risen to the challenges presented... Read More »
The U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded a $1.5 million grant to Soligenix, Inc. last week to aid manufacture, formulation, and characterization of COVID-19 and ebola virus disease vaccine candidates.
All will be pursued in conjunction with the CoVaccine HT... Read More »
Researchers at the University of Colorado Boulder have discovered a chemical compound capable of working with natural bodily processes to break through antibiotic resistant bacteria and have published the results in the journal PLOS Pathogens.
Although attentions for many scientists have... Read More »
The Department of Energy has awarded a $3.8 billion contract to Battelle Savannah River Alliance (BRSA) to manage the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL).
The agreement, which would span 10 years if all options are exercised, forms a partnership with a Battelle organization that includes... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved a treatment for the Zaire Ebolavirus infection in adults and children.
The treatment is called Ebanga, a human monoclonal antibody that blocks the virus's binding to the cell receptor, thus preventing its entry into the cell.
Zaire... Read More »
As the COVID-19 pandemic drags on, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded more than $107 million to support new, non-traditional means of plugging gaps in COVID-19 testing and surveillance, as well as to develop platforms for future outbreaks.
The awards were given under a program... Read More »
