Experimental Zika virus vaccine shown to be 100% effective in animal trials

By Luke Dormehl Published February 3, 2017

Ever since the outbreak of the Zika virus epidemic in Latin America in 2015, scientists have been racing around the clock to find vaccines that may be able to fight it.

Now, it looks like an experimental new vaccine developed by investigators from the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania is the best option yet — it has a 100 percent success rate at protecting mice and monkeys (and hopefully one day, humans) from the virus.

Recommended Videos

“We have developed a vaccine platform that uses nucleoside-modified mRNA complexed to a lipid-based particle,” lead researcher Drew Weissman, a professor of infectious disease at the University of Pennsylvania, told Digital Trends. “The mRNA is physiologic, as are some of the lipids used, which makes the vaccine very safe. A single immunization of a low dose resulted in complete and durable protection.”

Previously, the most successful Zika vaccine was an adenovirus-based live virus candidate. However, this was not without its problems since the body’s immune system regularly attacks adenoviruses, and can shut them down before they’ve had the chance to work their medical magic. “Live virus vaccines, while being effective, are also expensive and laborious to produce, have difficulty with regulators, and have adverse effects,” Weissman continued.

By comparison, the vaccine developed by Weissman and colleagues offers a number of benefits. For one, it wasn’t thwarted by the body’s immune system, nor did it show any negative effects in the animals that it immunized. Like the live virus vaccine, it’s a single-dose vaccination, but it required a significantly smaller dose to work: just 1 to 4 milligrams, as opposed to 50 milligrams for DNA vaccines.

Next up, Weissman said he wants to extend the testing to clinical trials in humans, which he hopes will take place in the next 12 to 18 months. He said that a phase 2 clinical trial may then be carried out within the following year.

“In emergent situations, it could be used without completion of Phase 3 trials, but I doubt this would happen,” he said. “Our hope is that it will be on the market in about five years.”

Former Contributor

I'm a UK-based tech writer covering Cool Tech at Digital Trends. I've also written for Fast Company, Wired, the Guardian…

Topics

Emerging Tech

Checking body medication levels may now be as easy as sucking on a peach-flavoured lollipop

Forget the clinic swab; this lollipop wants a lick

Lollylab

Checking your body’s medication levels is usually no one’s idea of fun. Now researchers are trying to change that with Lollylab, a candy-coated, lollipop-like device that can collect saliva and measure levels of acetaminophen in under two minutes.

The prototype created by researchers whose work was published in ACS Sensors transforms a familiar object into a miniature testing device. In a pilot study, six adults ingested the peach-flavored Lollylab before and one hour after a standard 650-milligram dose of acetaminophen. The device repeatedly detected the pain reliever in their saliva, and participants reported it was more comfortable and easier to use than traditional saliva swabs.

Phones

A US state just approved an AI doctor. For now, it’ll only prescribe acne cures.

Aside from acne, Nolla's AI can also handle redness, fine lines and wrinkles, hyperpigmentation and dark spots, and under-eye bags.

Nolla Derm AI doctor app.

The first AI doctor is here. Despite all the skepticism and risks associated with AI models going haywire, the state of Utah just approved Nolla Health, a company that is providing an AI healthcare expert capable of writing prescriptions without any human in the chain. For now, it will only write acne prescriptions for Utah residents over 18 years of age, willing to pay a token monthly subscription fee that's lighter than your Spotify bill.

The big push here is that the Nolla Derm app will reduce the costs of medical consultation, save users the hassle of clinic visits, and take out the problem of waitlisting from the entire healthcare equation. “Unlike telehealth platforms that use AI only to collect information before handing patients off to clinicians, Nolla's AI system is designed to independently issue initial prescriptions within tightly defined, physician-approved treatment protocols,” writes the company.

Emerging Tech

AI’s massive appetite could make cheap smartphones much harder to find

The smartphone aisle is getting pricier, and AI may be partly to blame.

Electronics, Mobile Phone, Phone

Buying a genuinely cheap smartphone could soon become a lot harder, and the reason has little to do with what’s happening inside the smartphone industry itself. The enormous amount of hardware being poured into AI data centers is pressuring global memory supplies. That has helped drive up the cost of making phones, and manufacturers appear increasingly reluctant to absorb those extra costs at the cheapest end of the market.

According to Counterpoint Research, prices of existing smartphones have increased by around 15% globally this year, while newly launched devices are roughly 25% more expensive than comparable models from last year. The impact hasn't been equal everywhere, either. Smartphone prices have climbed 21% in India and 19% across Asia-Pacific, compared with just 5% in the US.