Antiviral therapeutic for multiple Dengue virus serotypes.
Despite 390+ million annual DENV infections, there are no approved antiviral agents to prevent or treat any of the four prevalent DENV serotypes. Due to variability in viral strain and clinical pathology between infected patients, DENV imposes high diagnosis and treatment costs on affected countries. Due to the growing DENV market, there is an urgent need for an antiviral agent to prevent and treat Dengue virus infections.
Researchers at Emory have developed a therapeutic with the potential to inactivate known DENV serotypes—providing a universal treatment candidate for increasingly prevalent DENV infections worldwide. Via systemic delivery of mRNA-encoded Cas13a and optimized guide RNAs, the therapeutic selectively targets mRNAs specific to DENV that are necessary for viral replication. This therapeutic can be delivered using LNP-based mRNA delivery demonstrated in other antiviral therapeutics and vaccines.
This therapeutic has been successfully developed, delivered, and tested in acute DENV mouse models for two DENV serotypes.