Albert Einstein College of Medicine announced receipt of a five-year grant worth $14 million a year from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). The grant is part of NIAID’s ReVAMPP (Research and Development of Vaccines and Monoclonal Antibodies for Pandemic Preparedness) Network. The funding will enable participation in a national effort to develop “plug-and-play” vaccines and antibody-based therapies against various emerging viruses. Albert Einstein College of Medicine will lead a consortium, called PROVIDENT (Prepositioning Optimised Strategies for Vaccines and Immunotherapies Against Diverse Emerging Infectious Threats).
PROVIDENT
The PROVIDENT consortium links 13 teams from academia, government, and industry on four projects to:
- Discover and analyse virus-host interactions and the molecular mechanisms involved in viral disease
- Design proteins to elicit antiviral immune responses and then evaluate and optimise those responses
- Create “road maps” for quick development of RNA vaccines against microbes with pandemic potential
- Map the antibody response observed in people infected with viruses for use in vaccine and therapeutic design
The project builds on NIAID’s 2021 Pandemic Preparedness Plan, which “leverages its broad research portfolio, long-standing expertise in product development, capacity to engage both domestic and international partners, and flexible infrastructure”. The plan addresses both “priority pathogens” and “prototype pathogens”.
Prototype pathogens will be PROVIDENT’s focus; these are “representative viruses” in families with potential to cause “significant human disease”. The research will concentrate on three virus families:
- Nairoviruses – transmitted by ticks
- Hantaviruses – borne by rodents and other small mammals
- Paramyxoviruses – borne by bats and other mammals
A sprint strategy
Dr Kartik Chandran, principal investigator on the grant, professor of microbiology and immunology, Gertrude and David Feinson Chair in Medicine, and Harold and Muriel Block Faculty Scholar in Virology, reflected on the importance of pandemic preparedness as revealed during COVID-19.
“One of the key lessons from the COVID pandemic is that having existing research on a viral family allows scientists to develop vaccines and therapeutics for a particular virus much more quickly. In our project, we plan to create a base of critical knowledge about a group of similar viruses and then – should a related ‘virus X’ pose a health threat – develop specific countermeasures as quickly as possible to save as many lives as possible.”
Dr Chandran explained that the researchers will select and study one or two prototype viruses from each family, developing countermeasures that will work against “as many viruses within that family as possible”.
“That strategy of quickly responding to an emerging virus with an approach and tools that have already been developed is what we mean by ‘plug and play’. A part of PROVIDENT’s strategy will be to carry out ‘sprints’ in which countermeasures that are developed for the prototype pathogens will be tested against other viruses in the same family to see how well they work and to improve them.”
The approach enabled faster development during the COVID-19 pandemic, and Dr Chandran emphasised the importance of coordinating efforts to “increase our odds of mounting a timely and effective response”. Dr Eva Mittler, research assistant professor and leader of a PROVIDENT component, warned that “we don’t know what virus will cause the next pandemic”.
“Recent outbreaks of mpox, Nipah virus, and Eastern equine encephalitis, among other viral infections, underscore the need for an even broader preparedness programme.”
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