CAMBRIDGE, Mass, 15 June 2022. Tiba Biotech, a pre-clinical nucleic acid therapeutics company, today announced a new collaboration with leading researchers at the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine of Tufts University to develop next generation vaccines against emerging tick-borne diseases (TBDs). The goal is to design a multi-antigen messenger RNA vaccine protective against the particularly dangerous Powassan virus, a TBD which threatens the Northeast and the upper Midwest of the United States and parts of Canada. First identified in 1958, and with growing incidence over the past five years, there is yet no vaccine or treatment available.
The Powassan virus is spread to humans by an infected tick, the same tick species which transmits the more familiar Lyme Disease. While still rare, infection rates are increasing along with the expansion in the geographical range of ticks that transmit the disease. Relative to other TBDs, this can lead to devastating outcomes. Initial symptoms include fever, headache, nausea, and weakness. Severe cases, however, can lead to encephalitis – the swelling of the brain – with a ~10% fatality rate. Even for those who survive severe disease, there remain long-term health problems such as recurring headaches, loss of muscle strength, and memory loss.
We need new tools today to address tomorrow’s emerging infectious disease threats.
The Tufts team is led by Sam Telford, Professor of Infectious Diseases and Global Health, who heads the New England Regional Biosafety Laboratory at the Grafton campus. Christian Mandl, a Tiba co-founder who first sequenced the Powassan virus genome in 1993, said “We need new tools today to address tomorrow’s emerging infectious diseases. The tick population will only expand with warming temperatures, and so will infection rates.”
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) awarded the team a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase I grant to pursue early development of an RNA vaccine strategy. The collaboration leverages published research, led by Jasdave Chahal, focused on the Zika flavivirus, see An RNA nanoparticle vaccine against Zika virus elicits antibody and CD8+ T cell responses in a mouse model. For Christian Mandl’s seminal 1993 publication while at the Institute of Virology in Vienna, Austria, see Complete genomic sequence of Powassan virus: evaluation of genetic elements in tick-borne versus mosquito-borne flaviviruses.
