Walter Reed Army Institute of Research Archives

Walter Reed Army Institute of Research

Military personnel at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR ) are researching and developing vaccines that can save military and civilian lives from the threats of deadly viruses and bacteria.

There has been a lot of coverage in the news about the Zika virus. With U.S. service members deploying to areas where there is a danger of Zika, malaria and other dangerous pathogens, vaccines could be the key to not only keeping the troops healthier, but the civilian population as well.

Pharma companies Glaxo-Smith-Kline and Sanaria, in conjunction with WRAIR, are near ready to release their vaccines for malaria. But this wasn’t new territory for the institute: WRAIR has been a research partner in the development of every existing malaria medication on the market today, as well as the first effective licensed vaccine against meningitis in the 1970s.

“Every single licensed therapy for malaria has somehow made its way through Walter Reed Army Institute of Research at some point in its development,” said Kayvon Modjarrad, WRAIR’s director for emerging infectious diseases. “It was tested, validated and developed within our institution,” Modjarrad said.

WRAIR is the largest and most diverse biomedical research laboratory in the Department of Defense. The institute’s greatest resources are the dedicated scientists, technicians, and support personnel who make up the core of the institute.

WRAIR is working on vaccines for Zika. Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) and chikungunya, a mosquito-borne disease that has appeared in the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, Europe, and the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Private-sector pharmaceutical companies are not always in the financial position to pursue vaccine research, so WRAIR provides resources and support to advance vaccine research.

“By us funding further studies of the more-promising vaccine candidates, we can generate more data on how safe and effective they are,” said Paul Keiser, director of WRAIR’s viral diseases branch. “More data means less risk. And less risk makes it more likely that a drug company may pick them up.”

Military Connection salutes and proudly serves veterans and service members in the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, Guard and Reserve, and their families.

By Debbie Gregory.

French drugmaker Sanofi has reached a research and development deal with the U.S. Army to develop a vaccine against the mosquito-borne Zika virus.

A vaccine to combat Zika, which has been linked to birth defects and neurological disorders, is currently not available.

The most common symptoms of Zika are fever, rash, joint pain, and conjunctivitis. The illness is usually mild with symptoms lasting for several days to a week after being bitten by an infected mosquito. People usually don’t get sick enough to go to the hospital, and they very rarely die of Zika. For this reason, many people might not realize they have been infected. However, Zika virus infection during pregnancy can cause the birth defect microcephaly, or small heads in babies, as well as Guillain-Barre syndrome, a neurological disorder.

Sanofi is the only major drugmaker working on a vaccine.

The collaboration with the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research (WRAIR) gives Sanofi access to a promising new vaccine, made from inactivated virus, that has already produced impressive results in mice, and could be ready for testing on humans in October.

WRAIR is a biomedical research facility administered by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The Zika virus, which has caused a major outbreak that began in Brazil last year, has spread to many countries in the Americas.

A single dose of the WRAIR’s experimental vaccine was shown to give 100 percent protection in mice against the Zika virus, according to a study published in Nature last week, boosting hopes that it will also work in humans.

Sanofi is developing another Zika vaccine based on its own know-how in battling established mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue, Japanese encephalitis and yellow fever.

However, that vaccine will take longer to develop and Sanofi said earlier this year it did not expect to start clinical trials on its in-house Zika candidate until 2017.

Sanofi’s factory in Lyon is capable of producing 100 million doses per year of its four-strain dengue shot, which could be adapted if needed to make even more doses of a single-strain Zika product.

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