West Nile Fever

West Nile fever (WNF) is on the rise, which points toward the need of getting effective therapeutic measures and vaccines for the disease. Our company focuses on providing integrated services for the development of vaccines and therapeutics for the West Nile fever.

Overview of West Nile Fever

West Nile fever (WNF) is a viral infection caused by the West Nile virus (WNV), with primary transmission in people occurring through the bite of infected mosquitoes, specifically of the Culex type. The first recorded case of the virus was in Uganda in 1937, and now has become endemic in almost every part of the world, including North America and some European Countries. The symptoms of WNV vary from person to person. In about 80% of documented cases there were no symptoms at all, however, about 20% experienced mild ‘flu-like’ symptoms known as WNF, and approximately 1 in 150 were afflicted with more serious autoimmune conditions related to WNV, such as West Nile neurological disease (WNND), which has to the potential to cause encephalitis, meningitis, or acute flaccid paralysis.

Fig.1 United Nations annual West Nile virus-related morbidity and mortality. (Kaiser J. A., et al., 2019)

Vaccine Development for West Nile Fever

A lot of efforts have gone into developing vaccines against West Nile Fever due to the increased occurrence of WNV infections. Some veterinary vaccines have already been approved for use in animals, especially horses, and the information on some of the WNV vaccine candidates is provided in the below table.

Table 1 Summary of WNV vaccine candidates. (Kaiser J. A., et al., 2019)

Therapeutics Development for West Nile Fever

Antiviral Therapies: Monotherapy WNV antiviral drugs development has been aimed at the viral replicating enzymes like NS3 protease and NS5 polymerase. antivirals aimed to inhibit the virion envelope proteins pockets have shown specific activities in vitro.

Monoclonal Antibodies: Monoclonal antibodies are now emerging as therapeutics by blocking or enhancing the immune defense mechanisms against WNV such as MGAWN1. These antibodies have shown efficacy in animals and are currently under clinical investigation for their safety and efficacy in humans.

RNA Interference: The process of MDRNA intervention is the usage of siRNAs, small interference RNAs that are capable of destroying specific viral RNA sequences. So far this approach has dshwn to limit the replicatuion of WNV per cell in culture models.

Our Services

Vaccine Development: Our services span from development of the viral antigens, vaccine candidates, and their immunogenicity and protective ability evaluation during the well-controlled preclinical studies.

Therapeutics Development: We concentrate our therapeutics development services on small molecules, biologics and other interventional approaches to tackle WNF. Our specialization in virology, medicinal chemistry and pharmacology pushes promising drug candidates further forward.

Vaccine Development

• Live-attenuated Vaccine
• Inactivated Vaccine
• Toxoid Vaccine
• Viral Vector Vaccine
• Virus-like Particles Vaccine
• Protein Subunit Vaccine
• mRNA Vaccine
• DNA Vaccine

Therapeutic Development

• Small Molecule Drug Development Services
• Therapeutic mRNA Development Services
• Therapeutic Antibody Development Services
• Cell Therapy Development Services

Infectious Disease Models

• WNV Infection C57BL/6J Models
• WNV Infection Collaborative Cross (CC) Models
• Golden Hamster West Nile Encephalitis Models
• Customized Animal Models

We conduct extensive preclinical research to evaluate the safety and immunogenicity of vaccine candidates in relevant animal models. This includes assessing immune responses, protective efficacy, and potential adverse effects. If you are interested in our services, please feel free to contact us.

All of our services and products are intended for preclinical research use only and cannot be used to diagnose, treat or manage patients.