Sergei Kotenko

Intellectual property rights (e.g., royalties, patents, copyrights) not from the awardee Institution

Development of IFN-lambda3 for the Prevention and Treatment of Virus Infection

There is a growing concern that naturally existing benign viruses within human population or viruses normally residing in non-human hosts, like monkey pox virus (MPXV), coronaviruses such as severe acquired respiratory syndrome (SARS) virus, or influenza viruses, may evolve to efficiently infect and spread through the human population after acquiring sporadic mutations in the wild or being genetically modified in laboratory settings for bioterrorism. Even with enormous advances in the development of diagnostic techniques, several weeks may pass before a novel emerging virus can be identified; it may take several months (or years) to develop effective virus-specific therapy. Therefore, under the threat of an attack to civilian or military personnel with bioweapons of unknown nature, or immediately after an attack, only broad-spectrum antivirals can be used as a prophylactic treatment to prevent and/or treat infection with an unidentified viral agent. We propose to develop and test broad-spectrum antiviral therapeutics based on the recently discovered novel antiviral cytokines known as interferon-lambdas (IFN-?s).