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When a pandemic flu erupts, the world’s best weapon may be a drug now being developed at the University of Georgia. By using a newly discovered approach to attack viruses, GRA Eminent Scholar Dr. Ralph Tripp and his UGA colleagues believe they can short-circuit the flu and other viral diseases.
The new drugs use RNA interference (RNAi) to stop a virus from replicating within the body. Once the drug halts the replication of the virus, the body’s immune system can eliminate the remaining virus, thus allowing the patient to quickly recover.
An RNAi treatment to fight respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) – a highly contagious virus that can kill infants, young children and the elderly – is already in human clinical trials.
Once approval is given to the new RSV drug, which Dr. Tripp’s group developed in partnership with a private pharmaceutical company, it will be easier to speed FDA approval of other RNAi drugs currently being investigated for other viruses, including avian flu.
Official estimates predict that a flu pandemic such as avian flu could kill 2 to 8 million people worldwide. Flu vaccines take more than a year to develop and many more months to become widely available; moreover, they become less effective as a flu strain mutates, which is a certainty. In contrast, an RNAi drug for a pandemic flu virus could be developed and mass-produced within nine months. Also, because RNAi drugs affect a fundamental function – self-replication – they are unlikely to be affected by minor viral mutations in certain regions of the virus, making these drugs more potent and flexible, even as the virus changes.
Meanwhile, RSV – the target of the drug now in the FDA approval process – is a real health threat today. Some 90,000 children and adults in the United States are hospitalized with RSV each year. About 5,000 of them die. More striking, research by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has revealed that up to half of all deaths blamed on pneumonia or flu are actually caused by RSV.
Before coming to UGA in 2004, Dr. Tripp was the immunology section chief of the Respiratory and Enteric Viruses unit at the CDC. He conducts his work at UGA’s Animal Health Research Center. This 75,000-square-foot BSL3-Ag facility is the only academic, non-federal lab capable of conducting research with high-containment pathogens on both small and large animals. Its unique abilities have opened the door for collaboration with pharmaceutical companies. This collaboration yields even more research investment and speeds new drugs to market.
In his role at the CDC, Dr. Tripp was in regular contact with GRA Eminent Scholars from Emory University. He had not considered moving into academia, but when UGA approached him about becoming an Eminent Scholar, his familiarity with GRA’s program made him want to learn more. GRA not only named Dr. Tripp as an Eminent Scholar and funded Dr. Tripp’s position but also invested in a $2 million upgrade to the Animal Health Research Center, an investment that covered the purchase of sophisticated technology for research and commercial development.
In less than three years at UGA, Dr. Tripp has brought in more than $5 million in private investment and government grants. He has won drug development contracts with three pharmaceutical companies and has recruited several prominent scientists to UGA, including Dr. Tom Hodge from the CDC, Dr. Mark Tompkins from the FDA, and Dr. Robert Hogan from Southern Research Institute. He is working to launch two private companies, both based in Georgia, and is recruiting additional companies to come to Georgia from other states, enticing them with the promise of collaborating with his lab on their own research.
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