Two grants totaling $30 million a year for three years support efforts to design vaccines, drugs for understudied virus families.
“If the COVID-19 pandemic taught us anything, it’s that being prepared saves lives,” said Michael S. Diamond, MD, PhD, the Herbert S. Gasser Professor of Medicine at WashU Medicine and the director of the ReVAMPP flavivirus and alphavirus program led by WashU Medicine. Diamond is also a professor of molecular microbiology and of pathology & immunology at WashU Medicine. “We had some preparation for the COVID-19 pandemic because of previous research on the related SARS and MERS viruses. But there are other viruses with potential to cause pandemics for which we are even less prepared. We don’t have specific therapies for any of the flaviviruses or alphaviruses, and we don’t know how to quickly make safe and effective vaccines for them, either.”