The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently developed a program called the Pandemic Prevention Platform (P3) designed to stop the spread of any viral disease outbreak before it can escalate to pandemic status.
The P3 program comes after a years-long effort by DARPA in developing RNA vaccine technology, which acts as a medical countermeasure against infectious diseases, and a research effort into genetic constructs that can directly stimulate the production of antibodies in the body.
DARPA said P3 would offer a “stark contrast to the state-of-the-art for developing and deploying traditional vaccines.”
The agency said the program will first seek to grow viruses to support the evaluation of therapies in laboratory tests. Then researchers will subject antibodies to rounds of evolution outside of the body to increase its potency beyond even the most effective antibodies produced by infected patients. Finally, researchers will develop a means of efficiently delivering nucleic acid-based protective treatments.
DARPA said a key benefit of nucleic acid-based delivery in limiting infection is that the genetic constructs introduced to the body would be processed quickly and would not integrate directly into an individual’s genome.
“Our country asks our military Service members to deploy globally and provide humanitarian assistance in all manner of high-risk environments. We owe it to them to develop the best protections possible,” DARPA P3 Program Manager Matt Hepburn said. “If we’re successful, DARPA could take viral infectious disease outbreaks off the table as a threat to U.S. troops and as a driver of global instability.”