Biological threat
U.S. Rep. Dan Donovan (R-NY) on Tuesday decried actions by his congressional colleagues for jeopardizing the development of a vaccine for the Zika virus.
Donovan’s statement came in the wake of three different companies threatening to halt their developments due to funding uncertainty.... Read More »
The International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL) produced its first biosafety curriculum for police colleges to advance law enforcement capability and preparedness in responding to biological incidents on Tuesday.
The initiative was developed under Project Rhino and seeks to address... Read More »
The House Homeland Security Committee released its “Terror Gone Viral” report that shows that the wave of terror attacks in the past month have helped ISIS reach a record-level of plotting following the attacks in Germany, France and Orlando.
“ISIS terrorists have reached an alarming and... Read More »
Soligenix released positive preliminary proof-of-concept results on Monday from its collaboration with Axel Lehrer to develop a heat-stable subunit Ebola virus vaccine.
Lehrer is a doctor in the Department of Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology at the John A. Burns School of... Read More »
The House Energy and Commerce Committee passed a bill on Thursday introduced by U.S. Reps. Susan Brooks (R-IN) and Anna Eshoo (D-CA) aimed at incentivizing investments in vaccines and treatments for dangerous and deadly diseases identified as threats to our national security.
The Strengthening... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) awarded the initial funding of the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office’s (DNDO) Securing the Cities program to Chicago on Wednesday to build upon the agency’s increase in capabilities to detect and protect against radiological and nuclear threats.... Read More »
Researchers at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) and CBI Polymer recently explored how a HydroGel can be modified to decontaminate surfaces contaminated with harmful biological agents, such as the anthrax-inducing Bacillus anthracis.
HydroGel is a biosynthetic polymer that can be... Read More »
The European Parliament has taken an important step toward protecting victims of potential biological, chemical and other types of terrorist attacks in the European Union with its new draft counterterrorism directive that is being negotiated this week.
The European Parliament’s Civil... Read More »
A team at the Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) has developed a means for Department of Defense (DoD) labs across the globe to quickly obtain a genomic analysis of unknown and potentially hazardous biological samples without incurring the cost and risk of shipping them to a robust... Read More »
The Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) recently announced that is has developed a decontamination spray that enables soldiers at the unit level to decontaminate vehicle surfaces in the field immediately after exposure to a chemical warfare agent and continue with their mission.
The... Read More »
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) provided BioCryst Pharmaceuticals with additional funding on Monday for efficacy studies of BCX4430 in non-human primates to further assist effective dose regimens.
BCX4430 is a broad-spectrum antiviral that is advancing toward... Read More »
The First Responder Network Authority (FirstNet) moved forward on Friday with its preparations for a public-private partnership to deploy and operate a nationwide public safety broadband network.
During their meeting in Chicago, the FirstNet board of directors provided strategic guidance for... Read More »
A coalition of research institutions published a report in the Clinical Infectious Disease Journal on Wednesday that analyzed the immune responses of Ebola patients treated in the United States.
The coalition includes the U.S. Centers for Disease and Control (CDC), the Emory University School... Read More »
The Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report on Tuesday that found that the National Guard, part of the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), has made progress incorporating the Homeland Response Force (HRF) into the chemical, biological radiological and nuclear (CBRN) response... Read More »
The National Institutes of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) released a report on Tuesday detailing how a single dose of either of two experimental Zika vaccines protected mice infected with the virus for four to eight weeks after receiving the inoculations.
NIAID said that this... Read More »