Viruses can evolve and mutate rapidly to establish resistance, making the development of durable and effective antiviral therapies challenging. The innate immune system has the ability to target pathogen membranes through the expression of short antimicrobial peptides (AMPs), which exert direct antimicrobial activity and can therefore act as antiviral agents against enveloped viruses. Researchers from New York University and affiliated organizations have presented the discovery and preclinical evaluation of novel family of AMP mimetics, called peptoids, as potential new antiviral candidates.

Researchers from Infex Therapeutics Ltd. have announced the nomination of a clinical candidate for its in-house developed COV-X program. The novel first-in-class small molecule is an oral pan-coronavirus papain-like protease (PLpro) inhibitor, which was selected based on preclinical data that demonstrated in vivo efficacy of the candidate a murine model of SARS-CoV-2.

Cocrystal Pharma Inc. announced the company has selected its broad-spectrum 3CL protease inhibitor CDI-988 for development as a potential oral therapy for norovirus.

An experimental vaccine that contained antigens of both lytic and latent phases of Epstein-Barr virus (EBV), and induced both an antibody and a T cells response, was able to generate broad and long-lasting immunity against EBV in mouse models of infection. Researchers from the QIMR Berghofer Medical Research Institute and Elicio Therapeutics Inc. reported those results online in Nature Communications on Aug. 8, 2023.

For some viruses, the challenge to developing a vaccine is their rapid mutation rate. This is the major challenge to developing an HIV vaccine or a universal flu vaccine. EBV is different. Its superpower is its ability to hide.

Human schistosomiasis is caused by parasitic flatworms in the genus Schistosoma, with the three major species that cause this disease being S. mansoni, S. haematobium, and S. japonicum. In the current study, researchers from University of Texas Health Science Center San Antonio presented preclinical data for novel oxamniquine (OXA) derivatives as potential new candidates for the treatment of this neglected tropical disease.

It has gone unnoticed in HIV research until now, but a transcriptomic analysis has detected a molecule that could kill this virus. Scientists at a U.S. military research institute laboratory have found a common factor in human cells that inhibited the replication of HIV-1 in people living with the virus. “Without any manipulation of cells in people with HIV, we have found a host factor that is inhibiting HIV in vivo,” the senior author Rasmi Thomas, chief of the Laboratory of Integrative Multiomics at Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, told BioWorld. Using single cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq), the study published on Aug. 2, 2023, in Science Translational Medicine identified this host factor as prothymosin α, a protein isolated from the thymus in 1966 and described in 1984.

The dent made in Bavarian Nordic A/S’ future revenues after it dropped development of late-stage respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) contender MVA-BN-RSV could be offset by potential sales of its chikungunya virus vaccine, PXVX-0317, if recent phase III immunogenicity data manage to persuade the U.S. FDA that it’s as worthy as Valneva SA’s VLA-1553, the other chikungunya vaccine racing to be first to market.