Biological
After serving as the acting director of the Army’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center (ECBC) since May, Eric Moore was named the permanent director of ECBC by Maj. Gen. Cedric Williams effective Oct. 29.
ECBC is tasked with research and development efforts related to non-medical components of... Read More »
A two-day workshop was recently held in Washington, D.C. that addressed methods of building up the U.S. ability to monitor and analyze its medical countermeasures for use in public health emergencies.
Hosted by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, the workshop focused... Read More »
CARB-X, a partnership between U.K. and U.S. organizations, has awarded $2.48 million to Amicrobe Inc. for development of a bioengineered antimicrobial designed to help infected tissue.
Presently, the World Health Organization estimates drug-resistant infections kill 700,000 per year. In the... Read More »
In an effort to improve international biosafety and security, the Sandia National Laboratories have created a peer mentorship program to pair experts from developed and developing nations.
The program has been dubbed the Biosafety Twinning program. It operates in six-month terms, focusing on... Read More »
Rutgers University has been awarded a $300,000 contract by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for the next two years in order to address a deadly fungal infection spreading through hospitals.
Candida auris is a variant of yeast that can enter the bloodstream and is both... Read More »
The Alliance for Biosecurity formally recognized the sustained efforts of U.S. Rep. Charles Albert “Dutch” Ruppersberger, D-Md., to improve how the United States prevents and combats biosecurity threats with its Congressional Biosecurity Champion Award.
Congressman Ruppersberger on Oct. 19... Read More »
Biologists from the University of California San Diego have made headway in new flu and anthrax treatments through two separate studies focused on bodily defense.
Experiments in both cases unveiled new mechanisms the body uses to defend itself, working their way up from fruit flies. The results... Read More »
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) launched Tuesday the Hidden Signals Challenge, a competition that seeks ideas for novel uses of existing data to discover emerging biothreats.
The competition offers a $300,000 prize.
“This Challenge is... Read More »
A joint discovery by the Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden recently found elusive drug resistance genes in bacteria.
Bacteria have been evolving in recent years, mutating to meet our own efforts against them. Even otherwise harmless bacteria can pass... Read More »
The Blue Ribbon Study Panel on Biodefense, a privately funded group established in 2014 to ascertain the current biodefense capabilities of the United States and issue expert recommendations to encourage change, has grown increasingly worried about microbial forensics and biological... Read More »
In an effort to help federal agencies identify biodefense capabilities and identify priorities for spending, the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a study Wednesday tracking national activities that contribute to biological threat awareness.
Key players involved in the study... Read More »
There is something to be said for adapting to modern technology, but the Los Alamos National Laboratory is taking that a step further – leveraging technology with a project that combines Brazilian social media and traditional clinical data to track the growth of infectious diseases.
Nick... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. said on Tuesday it completed the acquisition of raxibacumab, an antibody for treatment and prophylaxis of inhalational anthrax, from GSK.
Emergent said raxibacumab is the only fully human monoclonal antibody approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for... Read More »
A plan to protect subways in the event of a chemical or biological attack is ready to be put into place and implemented, scientists say.
Mark Tucker, engineer at Sandia National Laboratories, is leading a project to study how to decontaminate chemical and biological weapons attacks, such as... Read More »
Police in Bristol, England recently used chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) response training simulators from Argon Electronics for a hazardous material (HazMat) training exercise.
The exercise required participants to provide security for a half-marathon event. While the... Read More »
A roundtable discussion on the current landscape of biological risks posed by technology advancement in the fourth industrial revolution was recently hosted in New York City by the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) and the World Economic Forum (WEF).
While the first industrial revolution centered... Read More »
Experts from the Oregon State University, the Oregon Health and Science University’s College of Pharmacy and the Oregon Health Authority say that communication breakdowns are among the leading potentials for infection outbreaks of drug-resistant bacteria.
Supported by a slew of organizations,... Read More »
The U.S. House of Representatives recently advanced an amendment authored by U.S. Rep. John Delaney (D-MD) to fully fund the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC), reversing a decision by the Trump Administration to eliminate funding for the center in its proposed FY2018... Read More »
Researchers at Duke University recently developed a three-dimensional map of the complex molecular circuitry of Francisella tularensis, the bacteria that causes tularemia, in order to better understand how the pathogen becomes virulent.
"Now we have the coordinates for stopping one of the most... Read More »
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recently approved the use of Vabomere, the first antibiotic drug in the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) portfolio, in order to help combat the rise of drug-resistant bacteria.
Specifically, Vabomere was approved to treat... Read More »
Start-ups and small biotech companies are the most-promising developers for new medical countermeasures for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear (CBRN) threats, but they face serious challenges, according to Battelle's Senior Market Manager for Medical and CBRN Products Russell Coleman.... Read More »
Gigi Gronvall, a senior associate at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, recently spoke about the role of synthetic biology in national security at Edgewood Chemical Biological Center’s 100th Anniversary Speaker Series at Aberdeen Proving Ground near Aberdeen, Maryland.
Gronvall is... Read More »
Without an internationally standardized approval process to guide countries in conducting public health-related experiments, resurrecting an eradicated disease in the lab increases the risk it could be used as an agent of bioterrorism, says Dr. Tom Inglesby, who is recognized worldwide in the... Read More »
Emergent Biosolutions said on Monday it has been awarded a contract worth approximately $23 million from the Medical Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) Defense Consortium (MCDC) for the development of an innovative multi-drug auto injector for nerve agent antidote... Read More »
Emergent Biosolutions said on Wednesday it has entered into a licensing agreement with Valneva SE for the global exclusive rights to the company’s Zika vaccine technology, ZIKV.
“Emergent is focused on providing preparedness solutions to public health threats and emerging infectious... Read More »
In Seoul, South Korea, dozens of countries are gathering this week to discuss the future of the Global Health Security Agenda (GHSA), which seeks to protect the world from infectious disease threats and has formed the backbone of biosecurity initiatives across the globe for more than three years.
... Read More »
Battelle recently received a Defense Technical Information Center (DTIC) Homeland Defense and Security Technical Area Task (HD TAT) award with a total value of $13,781,575 to support the National Guard Bureau’s (NGB) Combating Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Division initiative.
The... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions said on Wednesday it plans to acquire GlaxoSmithKline’s (GSK) raxibacumab, a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved monoclonal antibody used for the treatment of inhalation anthrax, in an all-cash transaction valued at up to $96 million.
Raxibacumab is approved... Read More »
Emergent BioSolutions Inc. said on Friday it plans to acquire Sanofi’s ACAM2000 business, the only vaccine licensed by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for active immunization against smallpox, in an all-cash transaction totaling up to $125 million.
ACAM2000 is the primary smallpox... Read More »
U.S. Reps. Tim Murphy (R-PA) and Greg Walden (R-OR) recently sent a public letter to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), regarding the Blue Ribbon Panel’s review of the 2014 smallpox virus incident on the NIH campus that called into question a number of missed opportunities to discover vials... Read More »
The Florida State Department of Health recently entered into a data use agreement and analytics agreement with the University of North Carolina (UNC) to officially join the National Collaborative for Bio-Preparedness (NCBP), a network which aims improve national preparedness for biohazard-related... Read More »
Botulinum toxin, produced by Clostridium botulinum bacteria, is the most potent biological toxin known to exist on Earth. The toxin causes botulism, a severe muscle-paralyzing, potentially fatal disease, characteristics that increase its likelihood as a potential bioweapon.
And while the U.S.... Read More »
According to a recent update conducted by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO), the Department of Defense (DOD) has identified an infrastructure manager for the chemical and biological defense program (CBDP) and is in the process of developing the position’s roles and responsibilities.... Read More »
As the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) locks in its budget priorities, on the potential chopping block is the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center (NBACC)—a potentially devastating public health concern, one expert says.
That center, which aided governmental response... Read More »
Three amendments, authored by U.S. Rep. Donald M. Payne, Jr. (D-NJ), were included in the recently-passed Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Authorization Act of 2017 by the U.S. House of Representatives, each of which addresses a specific challenge in disaster response, oversight and... Read More »
