Monthly Archives: March 2020

Ever since the Human Genome Project began in the late 1980s, genetics and DNA have become topics of mass interest. The book Genome: The Autobiography of a Species in 23 chapters states that the genome is a book that wrote itself, continually adding, deleting, and amending for over four billion years.

For Dr Surendra Chikara, who has been working in the field for close to 20 years now, the idea of founding Bione, a healthcare startup, was a no-brainer.

Monitoring the present coronavirus outbreak scenario in the country, we have included new parameters to our Longevity Plus kit. The new updated kit provides information about the susceptibility of a person to viruses like coronavirus, SARS-like viruses, HIV, Hepatitis C virus, etc. This could be based on an individuals genetic makeup or the patterns of living, Surendra says.

Dr Surendra, Founder of Bione

Surendra says a recent addition to the Bione Genetic test can check an individuals susceptibility to coronavirus. He adds that the platforms microbiome test, combined with its predictive analytics tools and artificial intelligence, can provide tailored recommendations to individuals to strengthen their microbiome and improve their immunity.

A research paper titled 'Evidence of gastrointestinal infection of SARS-CoV-2 revealed that 23.29 percent patients infected with SARS CoV-2 showed positive results in stool after showing negative in respiratory samples. Hence, the gut microbiome test is the only way to know when a virus is no longer in your system, Surendra says.

Surendra started his career with recombinant DNA technology and worked with Dr Gita Sharma, who had created the first r-DNA vaccine for Hepatitis-B in India.

My journey in genomics started under her support and guidance. It was the time when human genome sequencing and next-generation sequencing were starting to gain importance. We were in discussions to bring D2C technology to India, but the Indian healthcare market was not ready for direct-to-consumer genetic testing," Surendra says.

This is a huge problem that all my networks were aware of. We all know that the future of the global pharmaceutical industry lies in developing precision medicines tailored for individuals based on their genes, and clinical risk for developing a disease. Indian genetic data is highly diverse and a number of breakthroughs can happen. At Bione, we are doing our part to be part of this bigger picture of making India disease-free, Surendra says.

The different types of kits depend on the number of tests covered, and include Longevity kit, Longevity Plus Kit, and MyMicrobiome kit. The Longevity Plus kit covers over 415 parameters, including health, personalised medicine, fitness, and wellness.

The team claims that it also covers a parameter that determines specific gene variants that may contribute to enhance resistance to viruses like coronavirus, HIV, Hepatitis C, and many others.

The MyMicrobiome kit identifies and quantifies the microbiome in the gut, based on which a personalised diet is recommended.

Surendra says scientific research has shown that the gut microbiome plays an important role in the function and maintenance of our immune system. In ideal conditions, this microbiome-immune system alliance allows the initiation of protective responses against germs.

The platform also offers sample collection, with samples collected from an individuals homes. A pick-up is arranged as per your convenience by Bione. The DNA sequencing is done in a well-equipped lab by expert scientists, after which a detailed report is prepared.

Bione gXplore is a user-friendly, informative, and interactive app-based platform. On it, you can go through your report and easily understand the results of DNA analysis.

Slots with genetic or food and nutrition counsellors are provided as a free-of-cost service. The expert team of counsellors guides you to proactively plan your and your familys health and lifestyle choices.

The Bione team consists of experts from global institutions and domains of genomics, genetics, bio-IT, genome informatics, quality assurance, sales, marketing, genetic/nutrition/fitness counselling, and fundraising leads. The startup has a total team size of 39 people.

The startup also runs a lab with scientists, bioinformaticians, and genetic counsellors. The team is applying for ISO 9001:2015, followed by CAP and CLIA accreditation to follow global standards.

Bione is projecting to test 20,000 to 30,000 samples in the first year of operations. Tests are priced between Rs 15,000 to Rs 65,000, with the option of paying in EMIs. Customers can choose the package based on their needs.

The startup has raised angel funding from a clutch of undisclosed investors.

Currently, startups like The Gene Box and Hyderabad-based MapMyGenome work on providing preventive solutions based on an individuals genetic makeup.

He says the startup's high tech lab is using advanced technologies, including whole genome sequencing, while the competition is still working with array technology with limited markers.

(Edited by Kanishk Singh)

Continued here:
How healthtech startup Bione aims to use genetic testing in the fight against coronavirus - YourStory

This will help to develop a vaccine and understand the evolution of the virus.

Russian scientists have managed to sequence the first complete genome of the coronavirus, the Russian Health Ministry confirmed on March 19.

"This coronavirus is new to us, so it is essential to have an opportunity to identify the path of its spread and entry into the territory of our country, and its mutations. This information will help develop vaccines and antiviral drugs to treat the coronavirus, said Dmitry Lioznov, acting head of the Smorodintsev Research Institute of Influenza, whose specialists decoded the genome.

Soon, this data will be sent to the World Health Organization database so that scientists from other countries can have access to it.

In the meantime, scientists from the VECTOR State Research Center of Virology and Biotechnology in Novosibirsk have managed to take pictures of COVID-19 under a microscope. This is what the virus that has affected thousands of people on the planet looks like:

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Russian scientists take the first photo of a novel coronavirus and fully decode its genome (PHOTOS) - Russia Beyond

The new NextSeq 550 sequencing machine at UCSFs clinical lab on Berry Street looks like a microwave with a computer keyboard, but to microbiologist Charles Chiu, it is the key to Californias fight against the deadliest, most invasive virus to strike humanity in decades.

The professor of medicine at UCSF will be using the black contraption, installed Friday, to sequence the genomes of the viruses infecting hundreds of COVID-19 patients in the Bay Area during the next few weeks.

We will be running this 24 hours a day, said Chiu, wearing a white lab coat and purple rubber gloves as he fiddled with the keyboard and opened the door to a compartment where slides holding genetic material are scanned. I see no reason why we cant sequence the genomes of every case.

Chiu, 48, of San Francisco is one of the top infectious disease specialists in the world. He has assembled an expert team of scientists who have also used his research lab on 16th Street to find critical clues about where the viral outbreaks in the Bay Area came from and how quickly the disease is spreading.

His work, which includes tracking mutations and the spread of infection, is a crucial cog in our understanding of what makes this unique coronavirus tick and, eventually, how we might control or eradicate it and similar viruses.

A married father of 13- and 11-year-old boys, Chiu was born in Missouri to immigrants from Taiwan. He is director of the UCSF-Abbott Viral Diagnostics and Discovery Center. It was one of the first labs to sequence strains of the H1N1 influenza virus, which was associated with the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. Chiu has sequenced 2,000 unusual strains of HIV and strains of the Zika virus.

He has already analyzed nine samples from the more than two dozen passengers who tested positive for the coronavirus on the Grand Princess cruise ship and is close to pinpointing the origin of those cases.

Those sequences belong in the same cluster as the infection in Washington state, Chiu said. They really suggest a link between Washington state and California.

The Grand Princess, whose home port is San Francisco, departed Feb. 21 for a trip to Hawaii with more than 3,500 people aboard. It was halted off the coast of San Francisco after being called back because passengers from the ships previous cruise, to Mexico, had tested positive for the disease.

Among the passengers on the Mexico trip who tested positive was a 71-year-old Placer County man who died. Five people from Sonoma, Contra Costa and Alameda counties who were on that cruise also were infected.

Chiu has collected seven samples from passengers on the Hawaii cruise and, with help from the California Department of Public Health and the Washington State Department of Health, compared them with samples from two of the infected passengers on the Mexico cruise.

All of them were mapped to the Washington state strain, known to scientists as the WA1 strain, Chiu said. So the first cruise was basically the cause of all of those cases on the second cruise.

Chiu traced the disease back to a Mexico cruise passenger from Sonoma County who apparently transmitted the virus to the others, including crew members. They probably infected passengers on the Hawaii cruise.

Authorities are still tracing the links and validating the findings, but Chiu believes the infected Sonoma County man, who survived the disease, either visited Seattle before the cruise, came in contact with someone from Washington state or contracted it from an as-yet unidentified passenger from Washington state.

Chiu said tracking the spread of the virus through genetics is possible because coronaviruses are known to have one to two mutations per month, allowing genomic sequencing to track a particular strain back to its origin.

The rate of mutation in coronaviruses is much slower than it is with the influenza virus, which averages about eight to 10 mutations per month. The mutations are why it is impossible for humans to become immune to the flu, which comes back in a new form every year.

Chiu used genomic sequencing to identify Californias first case of community transmission a Solano County woman who was infected by an unknown source. She and a Santa Clara County woman who was subsequently diagnosed had not traveled any place where the coronavirus was known to have spread, and had not had contact with anyone who was infected.

The Solano County woman transmitted the disease to two health care workers. Chiu found that the three of them had a strain that was different from the others he has documented. In all likelihood, he said, it originated in China and was transmitted just to her by a traveler.

Perhaps by identifying that patient (and isolating her), we might have been able to stop that strain from multiplying, he said.

A separate strain seen nowhere else in the United States was also found in a San Benito County person who returned from a visit to China.

Its quite different from what is going on in Washington state, where all the cases are related to that single strain, he said about the 20 genomes that have been sequenced in that state, all of which originated in China.

With the new sequencing machine, Chiu expects to quickly analyze the 30 positive samples he has in the lab and more than 200 positive swabs he expects to receive from Santa Clara County on Monday. It will, he said, dramatically increase the amount of genetic information available about the coronavirus and its rampage.

Who knows what it will look like when we get the 200 samples, he said. Were basically scrambling to keep up. The situation changes every day.

The problem with tracking the various strains, Chiu said, is that China has not done much genomic sequencing only 50 sequences are available. Thats another reason Chius work is so important.

Im now investigating a cluster in Santa Clara, in which four people in a single building tested positive, Chiu said. A key public health question is, Are these all related, or is it just by chance that four people who had been infected separately were in the same place? Knowing this might affect how you implement public safety precautions.

Chiu is sequencing coronavirus genomes from cases in San Francisco and Berkeley, and from Sacramento, Santa Clara, San Mateo and Solano counties.

During the past week, the Washington strain has spread into California counties, he said. It means that what started out as a series of disconnected clusters of different strains is growing into a large conflagration of infection.

It concerns me that the Washington strain appears to be infiltrating California, he said. You could think of it like a fire, with sparks flying out. If all we are seeing is these sparks, the hope is that it never evolves into a fire. Are we still at the spark stage, where social distancing, quarantining, would make a difference? The question for us is, do we have the ability to contain this?

Another question is whether mutations can make the virus worse.

Its hard to answer that question, he said. I think over time we will find out if it becomes more transmissible or more deadly. Those questions take time.

One positive, he said, is that this virus mutates slowly. While the RNA changes slightly, the virus proteins and characteristics dont. The only way to tell whether the strength of the strain or the way it is transmitted has changed, he said, is to examine a lot of samples.

Even though influenza mutates every year, were not worried about it getting more deadly, Chiu said. Its unlikely that (the virus) will mutate to the point where it gets more deadly.

Chiu is also trying to solve the state and the countrys biggest problem the lack of diagnostic testing. California has the capacity to process only about 200 swab tests a day, largely as a result of the nationwide shortage in test kits, regulatory delays and a lack of equipment, he said. His lab is developing a test that will give a result in 30 minutes.

Our goal is to develop the next generation of tests, he said. Two hundred tests is not good at all. We need thousands, tens of thousands.

Soon, all outpatient samples from the Bay Area and much of the state are expected to be sent to his lab. That would allow him to sequence more genomes and find out more about the disease.

Peter Fimrite is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: pfimrite@sfchronicle.com. Twitter: @pfimrite

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The man behind the sequencing of the coronavirus could have keys to the disease - San Francisco Chronicle

On March 10, 2020, Iranian filmmaker Nader Talebzadeh hosted a discussion about the possibility that COVID-19 is a biological weapon on this show on Ofogh TV (Iran). The discussion was preceded by an animation that explained that the assumption is that COVID-19 is a synthetic virus that was designed as a bioterrorism agent in secret American laboratories as part of America's economic conflict with China. During the show, Iranian documentarian Hamed Ezzatizadeh said that his research has led him to the conclusion that the coronavirus is being used as a weapon, even though it is not clear whether it was produced as such or whether it is a naturally occurring virus. He wondered why China and Iran, which he explained are America's economic and ideological enemies, respectively, are two of the countries hit hardest by the virus, and he questioned why Hong Kong and the many poor countries with undeveloped public health systems that are between Iran and China, such as Tibet, Mongolia, and Afghanistan, have not been as affected by the virus as Iran has been. Dr. Ali Karami, a lecturer in medicine, said that as a result of the Iranian Genome Project, which he said was performed at Stanford University in violation of international conventions and with funding from Baha'i sources, the Americans and the Zionists have completely sequenced the genome of Iranians, and he suggested that the Americans have used this information in order to develop "ethnic weapons" that are most effective against certain ethnic groups. He said that Israel has been using these kinds of weapons to target Palestinians for a long time, and that this would explain why Iran, China, and South Korea are among the countries most affected by the coronavirus. Dr. Karami also claimed that Italy has been hit hard by the virus because Italians are genetically similar to Iranians. The other guest, Ezzatizadeh, pointed out that a similar campaign of ethnic bioterrorism had been used to annihilate the Native American population in the United States.

Animation: "The main assumption is that this virus is synthetic. In recent weeks, it has been said in the media and even by certain officials that this virus was produced in bioterrorism labs.

[...]

"America is one of the countries that has carried out extensive secret military activities in this field. America's main military biological labs that can produce such viruses are BSL-4 laboratories.

[...]

"Using biological means is of such importance for the Americans that the number of these labs grew from five in 2001 to 15 in 2009. First, one should answer the following question: Why has America produced and spread this virus? The answer is not difficult, because in the past year and a half, at minimum, America and China have engaged in every form of war, with the exception of military conflict. The trade war was another dimension of America's war to rein China in. This policy has been somewhat successful in showing down China's economic growth from 10%, which it had been for over three decades, to 6.6%. The integration of China's economy in the world economy has landed several blows to America's economy. Ultimately, Trump reached a short-term trade ceasefire with China. It seems, however, that while Trump was busy signing this agreement, the American researchers were busy producing a dangerous virus in America's biological labs in the region, in order to harm China's economy."

Hamed Ezzatizadeh: "My inquiries have not led me to the conclusion that this virus was produced as a weapon, nor have I reached the conclusion that it is natural and that it was not produced as a weapon. What is certain, though, is that it is being used as a weapon.

[...]

"Some regimes are using [this virus] as a weapon in order to whitewash things that they are doing. What happened in India was a disaster, yet everybody's attention was directed at the coronavirus. What is happening now in Saudi Arabia... Once again, they are laying siege to Qatif, and apparently they are about to severely oppress the Shi'ites there.

[...]

"Among the countries that have to seriously deal with the coronavirus, two are serious enemies of the Americans. One is their economic enemy, and the other is their ideological enemy.

[...]

"The structure of the coronavirus is very similar to that of a virus called MERS. It is also known as 'Camels Corona', and it appeared in Saudi Arabia in 2012. It is also very similar to SARS. This really increases the possibility that this virus was engineered. If we put aside all these technical matters, one question arises: There are many countries between China and Iran. How did the virus fly into Iran and affect it so badly? Is it because Iran's health system is so week? No, this is not the case. Between China and Iran, there are so many poor countries with health systems that are nearly destroyed. Look at Tibet, Mongolia, and Afghanistan. Iran is much stronger than these countries. How did this virus fly to Iran all of a sudden? Hong Kong shares a border with China. Hongkongers are similar to the Chinese from a genetic perspective, as well as in their diet, lifestyle, and everything. Yet, nothing is happening there."

[...]

Dr. Ali Karami: "The mortality rate in Iran... The number of deaths in our country is somewhat strange to me, because of the type of virus I am now researching. Look at Italy. How come the mortality rate there is so high? Italy is a European country. Our analysis shows that the genetics of the Italians are very similar to those of the Iranians.

[...]

"We are talking about something that I am how suggesting exists: Ethnic weapons. These are biological weapons that cause higher mortality rates among certain races. From the molecular-biological perspective, this is not strange at all.

[...]

"The question is: Was this virus altered? Was the genome of this virus built in a way that makes it easier for it to attach itself to the receptors of a certain genetic [identity] and cause an epidemic? Iran is the third most infected country after [China and] South Korea. What are the Americans doing in their labs?

[...]

"Dear people who listen to me, look up 'Iranian Genome Project' on the internet. Who conducted this project? The American Stanford University. I've been following this project in the past five years. Three Iranians and two Americans at Stanford, who had $200,000 donated to the university by a Baha'i foundation, completely sequenced the Iranians' genome. According to the conventions on genetic diversity and on the preservation of countries' genomes, this measure is completely illegal. It violates international conventions.

[...]

"114 Iranians from various ethnic groups participated in this project. They sequenced our genome in its entirety. 25,000 of our genes are held by the Americans and Israelis. They have our proteins. Did you know that they can produce medications or special viruses with specific receptors? Dear people who refuse to listen to me don't say that I suffer from conspiracy theory-related anxieties.

[...]

"In the Zionist regime, they work on bioterrorism agents that only infect a certain ethnic group the Palestinians. Do not tell me that this is impossible."

[...]

Hamed Ezzatizadeh: "With regard to the ethnic weapon he was talking about this is how they annihilated the Indians in America."

Nader Talebzadeh: "Exactly"

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Iranian Experts: COVID-19 Is An 'Ethnic' Bioterrorism Weapon - Middle East Media Research Institute

A genomic sequencing process that once took 30 hours or more can now be completed in a few minutes.

NVIDIA announced this week it will provide a free 90-day license to its Parabricks Genome Analysis Toolkit to enable researchers to leverage graphic processor units (GPUs) in their race to find a cure for the COVID-19 coronavirus.

The goal is to not just better understand how thecoronavirus is constructed to help develop a potential cure, but also discoverwhy it is more lethal to some individuals than others, says Kimberly Powell, vicepresident and general manager for healthcare at NVIDIA.

See also: 5 Places to Take Online AI Courses While You Ride Out COVID-19

The challenge is processing the massive amount of data requiredto sequence genome data. Many cloud service providers have been making computecapacity available to well over 50,000 researchers. NVIDIA is now moving tomake a potentially critical toolkit for analyzing that data available for freeas well.

Sequencing genome data clearly plays a key role in achievingthat latter goal sooner than later because GPUs can accelerate by as much as 50times the analysis of sequence data using algorithms that were createdspecifically to apply artificial intelligence (AI) to genome research, says Powell.A sequencing process that once took 30 hours or more can now be completed in afew minutes, says Powell.

However, the sequencing data now needed urgently as a matter of public safety resides in everything from documents to imaging applications. The Parabricks Genome Analysis Toolkit makes it easier, among other things, to aggregate and analyze all that data, says Powell.

There is no way you could make sense of all that datawithout AI, says Powell.

That research will also eventually play a critical role in helping to determine the original source of the virus. In fact, Powell says its already been established the COVID-19 virus was created outside of a lab and that it existed as far back as October/November of 2019.

COVID-19 researchers are naturally pursuing multiple linesof investigation. Rather than access to compute resources becoming an inhibitorin conducting that research, IT vendors are collectively moving to make sureresearchers have as much compute and storage resources available as required.

It will be interesting to see how much of the current spirit of cooperation will endure once the current crisis has passed. Its probable that not only will the COVID-19 coronavirus return; its also worth noting COVID-19 is only one in a series of coronavirus instances that are becoming more lethal with each new iteration. One of the potential benefits of all the resources being poured into COVID19 research is that pipelines, patterns, and processes are being created that could be applied to other research projects, notes Powell.

There is, of course, no guarantee a cure will be found. The common cold is a form of a coronavirus that has thwarted research efforts since the proverbial dawn of time. However, there may be a greater appreciation of AI may manifest itself should researcher find a cure. After all, its not likely any of that research could have been carried out in a timely manner with relying on AI to quite possibly save humanity than many are worried AI will replace.

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NVIDIA Makes Available Free Toolkit to Aid COVID-19 Research - RTInsights

NIEL, Belgium, March 24, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- eTheRNA Immunotherapies nv ('eTheRNA' or 'The Company'), a clinical-stage company developing vaccines and immunotherapies from its proprietary mRNA TriMix platform, today announced that a consortium has been formed with North American and European partners to develop a novel mRNA vaccine against CoV-2 and preclinical development has started. Chinese partners may be added in the consortium in due course.

Administered intranasally, the proposed vaccine is intended primarily for high risk populations such as healthcare workers and families of confirmed cases. It is also designed to be protective against future variations of the virus by targeting conserved epitopes from the whole CoV-2 genome. eTheRNA and its partners EpiVax, Nexelis, REPROCELL and CEV* have extensive experience in the mRNA vaccine field and this will help accelerate progress towards clinical trials with patient enrolment expected in early 2021.

Steven Powell, eTheRNA's CEO, explained the aims of the consortium: "Viral variation means traditional medicinal and preventive vaccine approaches may fall short when confronted with seasonal or outbreak situations. A vaccine to defend against current and future outbreaks of coronavirus and other respiratory viral pathogens should be robust against viral genome changes, provide a platform that enables rapid introduction of a new viral target, be easy and safe to administer and be scaleable and suitable for stockpiling. The innovative vaccine program we have started with our partners incorporates all of these essential features."

Traditional vaccines are based on generating an antibody response to outer surface viral protein targets. However, viral variation may greatly reduce the effectiveness of this approach. For example, the SARS-CoV-2 outer surface spike protein (S) is less than 40% homologous to SARS-CoV-1. Furthermore, it has also been reported in several cases that vaccines with suboptimal antibody response (too low or not neutralizing) have facilitated viral entry and been linked to disease enhancement.

The eTheRNA consortium's approach selects conserved epitopes from the whole viral genome. Creating a vaccine that mounts a strong cellular (T cell) based response against these epitopes offers a better chance to overcome viral variability. Intranasal delivery has been chosen since the mucosa of the upper respiratory tract are the immune system's primary line of defense. A strong nasal T cell effector and memory response is claimed to fight viral replication, colonization of the lung and thus disease. mRNA has also been demonstrated to induce strong T cell responses by intranasal delivery.

The development programme has been initiated and is focused on a vaccine candidate that integrates 3 different technologies:

"While valuable initiatives and strong support are being deployed into the development of medicinal and vaccine solutions for immediate use against SARS-CoV-2, it is also important that development of solutions for the longer term should also start as soon as possible," concluded Powell. "Our target is to bring this into clinical testing in early 2021."

Information for editors

About eTheRNA immunotherapies

eTheRNA immunotherapies is a clinical-stage company developing innovative immunotherapies from its proprietary mRNA TriMix platform. eTheRNA was established in January 2013 as a spin-off from the VUB university in Belgium and is developing products for the treatment of cancer and infectious disease.

About TriMix

The TriMix platform, on which eTheRNA's immunotherapies are based, comprises three mRNAs encoding proteins (caTLR4, CD40L and CD70) that work to deliver optimal activation of dendritic cells. These cells behave as immune response mediators and mobilize the immune system to attack cancer cells through inducing a T-cell response. Clinical proof of concept for TriMix-based immunotherapies has been established through an extensive dataset demonstrating clinical benefits in advanced melanoma patients.

About EpiVax

EpiVax is a 21-year old privately held biotechnology company located in Providence, Rhode Island. Scientists at EpiVax, led by co-founders Annie De Groot, MD and Bill Martin, lead in the fields of immunogenicity risk assessment and computational vaccinology with expertise in T cell epitope prediction, immune modulation, and rapid vaccine design. EpiVax's broad portfolio of projects includes vaccines and immunotherapies for infectious diseases, autoimmunity and cancer. EpiVax's proprietary in silico immunogenicity screening toolkits for therapeutics and vaccines, ISPRI and iVAX, are employed in advancing the research of a global roster of companies. Visit http://www.epivax.com for more information.

About Nexelis

With unrivaled expertise in immunology on both sides of the client/CRO relationship, and operating sites in North America (East and West Coast) and Europe, Nexelis is a leading provider of assay development and advanced laboratory testing services in the infectious diseases, metabolic diseases, and oncology fields. Our versatile team of scientists, working with our advanced technology platforms, were instrumental in the development, qualification, validation, and large-scale sample testing of assays that supported the FDA filing of almost 100 new molecular entities, including blockbuster vaccines, anti-viral drugs, and immunotherapy, gene and cell therapy products. Visit http://www.nexelis.com for more information.

About REPROCELL

REPROCELL was established in 2003 to accelerate medical research via cutting-edge stem cell and human tissue-based technologies, including the use of novel transfection reagents and RNA-based methods for the generation of induced pluripotent stem cells. REPROCELL has further diversified its portfolio of products and services to include predictive drug discovery services in human fresh tissues, technologies for the manufacture of bioengineered human tissues, industry-leading gene editing technology and one of the largest commercial repositories of ethically sourced human tissue. Visit http://www.reprocell.com for more information.

About CEV

The Centre for the Evaluation of Vaccination (CEV) of the University of Antwerp, headed by Prof. Pierre Van Damme, is a clinical trial centre specialized in the conduct of vaccine trials. It has performed Phase I until Phase IV clinical trials in all age groups. The CEV is internationally known for its professional and qualitative vaccine clinical trial facility and organisation and is therefore a regular partner in vaccine clinical trials, i.e. for EU funded clinical trials, for investigator-driven vaccine trials as well as for industry funded clinical trials. For more information visit https://www.uantwerpen.be/en/research-groups/centre-for-evaluation-vaccination/

Contact information

media@etherna.be

Or

Richard HayhurstRHAprMobile +44 (0)7711-821-527richard@rhapr.eu

View original content:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/etherna-launches-an-international-consortium-and-starts-development-of-cross-strain-protective-cov-2-mrna-vaccine-for-high-risk-populations-301028630.html

SOURCE eTheRNA

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eTheRNA Launches an International Consortium and Starts Development of Cross-strain Protective CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine for High Risk Populations - BioSpace