Research team reports advances in development of an effective therapy against the Nipah and Hendra virus

A collaborative research team from the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences (USU), the Australian Animal Health Laboratory (AAHL), and the National Cancer Institute (NCI), National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports a major step forward in the development of an effective therapy against two deadly viruses, Nipah virus and the related Hendra virus. The results of this finding appear October 30, 2009 in the open access journal PLoS Pathogens. The full study will be available following the release of the embargo at http://dx.plos.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1000642

Nipah virus and Hendra virus are found in Pteropid fruit bats (flying foxes) and are characterized by their recent emergence as agents capable of causing illness and death in domestic animals and humans.

In experiments carried out in ferrets at the AAHL in Geelong, Victoria, Australia, where there is a high-level safety and security facility for working with live Nipah and Hendra virus, the team of researchers demonstrated that giving an anti-virus human monoclonal antibody therapy after exposure to Nipah virus protected the animals from disease.

"These findings are extremely encouraging and clearly suggest the potential that a treatment for Hendra virus infection in a similar manner should be possible, given the very strong cross-reactive activity this antibody has against Hendra virus," said Deborah Middleton, DVM, PhD., who directed the animal experiments at the AAHL.

Recent earlier work at NCI and USU resulted in the discovery and development of a human monoclonal antibody, m102.4, which could attack a critical component of both the Nipah and Hendra viruses. Antibodies - proteins found in blood or other bodily fluids of vertebrates - are used by the immune system to identify and neutralize viruses and bacteria.

Study corresponding authors Christopher C. Broder, Ph.D., professor of Microbiology at USU and Katharine Bossart, Ph.D., a USU alumna, now an assistant professor in the Department of Microbiology, Boston University School of Medicine and an investigator at the National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories Institute in Boston, led a team of researchers to test the effectiveness of the new antibody therapy in animals. The experiments were supported in part by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIH.

According to study coauthor Dimiter S. Dimitrov, Ph.D., senior biomedical research scientist at the NCI, "We now have good evidence that this antibody could save human lives and the insights offered about how it works also could potentially provide a starting point to developing tools for targeting other diseases."