James Crowe

Developed in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, ReVAMPP will support a coordinating center and seven research centers, including VUMC, with a focus on nine virus groups that pose the greatest risk to human health.

VUMC’s antibody collaboration with the DOD goes back to 2018, when the medical center signed a five-year cooperative agreement with the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop protective treatments that can be rushed to health care providers within weeks after a viral outbreak.

Enterovirus D68 has caused an increasing number of infections during the past decade and is associated with acute flaccid myelitis, a polio-like condition that mostly affects children and causes sudden weakness and paralysis.

The antibodies may have clinical benefit as antiviral drugs to treat potentially life-threatening infections in elderly and immunosuppressed patients.

The findings reported in the journal Immunity support the development of a monoclonal antibody for prevention and treatment of influenza B — and will help guide efforts to develop a universal influenza vaccine.

The approach, which combines high-performance computing, simulation, machine learning and experimental validation, will help keep antibody drugs up to date in the future against highly variable viruses.

Radiology fellow moves from present-day patients to historical artifacts to understand health and illness