History of Breakthroughs
The work on COVID-19 continues a 50-year history for USAMRIID on the cutting edge of biological defense research, handling some of the world’s most dangerous pathogens and development of vaccines and therapeutics to help protect service members and civilians. It is the only laboratory in the DOD equipped to study highly hazardous infectious agents that require containment at Biosafety Level 4, the maximum level.
Recently, USAMRIID has been involved in a number of significant, non-coronavirus related advancements including a new U.S. Food and Drug Administration-approved smallpox/monkeypox vaccine that can be administered to people with human immunodeficiency virus and atopic dermatitis, which is also the only vaccine approved by the FDA for monkeypox. USAMRIID played a key role in development and testing of an ebola vaccine approved by the FDA last year and developed an experimental vaccine for animals for Sudan virus, a type of ebola virus.
“We are excited to offer a potential treatment option against one of the most deadly human pathogens known,” said John M. Dye, PhD, who led the Sudan virus research for USAMRIID. “Being prepared by having countermeasures against emerging infectious diseases allows the global community to try to stay one step ahead, rather than play ‘catch-up’ against potential pandemic viruses.”
- Chan KK, Dorosky D, Sharma P, Abbasi SA, Dye JM, Herbert A, Sharma P, Kranz DM, Procko E. Engineering human ACE2 to optimize binding to the spike protein of SARS coronavirus 2. Science. 4 August 2020. Doi:10.1126/science.abc0870
- Golden JW, Cline CR, Zeng X, et al. Human angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 transgenic mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 develop severe and fatal respiratory disease. JCI Insight. Published online August 25, 2020.
