As confirmed COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the need for a vaccine to prevent the spread of the flu-like virus grows. University of Hawaiʻi at M膩noa scientist Axel Lehrer is among those helping in that global fight. He is working in collaboration with New Jersey-based biopharmaceutical company to develop potential coronavirus vaccines, including one for the novel COVID-19 disease.

“Our platform has a good chance because the vaccine we鈥檙e producing is something that鈥檚 thermostable, can be produced in mass quantities and can be shipped everywhere without the need for refrigeration,” said Lehrer, an assistant professor at the . “That鈥檚 a huge benefit in an outbreak scenario where you need to be able to quickly ship vaccines around the world.”

Lehrer and his team of about a dozen lab colleagues in the have previously demonstrated the feasibility of developing an Ebola virus vaccine. Using the same technology platform, they are hopeful their development for a COVID-19 vaccine will also prove to be successful.

• Support 糖心Vlog官方 COVID-19 research

In contrast to other coronavirus vaccines that use an RNA-based approach that is quicker to test in humans, the recombinant subunit vaccine Lehrer is developing takes a more conventional approach used for many proven vaccines currently on the market.

“We鈥檙e making antigen, the protein that will make you resistant to the virus. We make those antigens that will give a solid immune response. Our product will take between six to nine months to be ready for clinical trials, but the immune response you develop is much more potent (in comparison to RNA-based vaccines),” said Lehrer.

Lehrer believes the recombinant subunit vaccine is the right approach for COVID-19. “It can be used in any person, in immunocompromised people, in the elderly and in small children. The safety margin is very good and that鈥檚 why we believe it could be a major contribution to the field,” he said.

“It is rewarding to see ongoing work by JABSOM investigators and collaborators expanding on successful research on filovirus vaccines (protecting against viruses such as Ebola and Marburg virus) that may help us make unique life-saving contributions during this difficult time in healthcare,” said JABSOM Dean Jerris Hedges. “The prospect of a science lab in Hawaiʻi helping develop a vaccine amid the COVID-19 pandemic is a testament to the importance of local research in Hawaiʻi.”

The next stage in the development process for the vaccine is to conduct test trials in small animals, which will commence in the next few weeks.

Along with Soligenix, Lehrer and his team are also working with , a Hawaiʻi-based subunit vaccine developer.

The state Joint Task Force on Rat Lungworm Disease, chaired by an associate professor at the University of Hawaiʻi at M膩noa (JABSOM), has announced new guidelines for clinical management of rat lungworm disease.

“One of the top priorities of the joint task force has been to develop sound, evidence-based guidelines for physicians to use in diagnosing and treating angiostrongyliasis,” said Kenton Kramer, an associate professor in JABSOM鈥檚 Department of Tropical Medicine, Medical Microbiology and Pharmacology. “The clinical subcommittee, made up of expert physicians and specialists from across the state, spent the last year researching and consulting with national and international specialists on the disease to carefully craft the new guidelines.”

JABSOM Associate Professor Vernon Ansdell, who has more than 45 years of experience specializing in internal and tropical medicine, spearheaded the effort to organize and chaired the clinical subcommittee.

“(This disease) can be problematic, because patients infected with the parasite do not always present the same symptoms,” said Ansdell. “These preliminary guidelines provide critical guidance to physicians to help them make timely and accurate diagnoses and give their patients the best possible treatment available. Our next step is to offer physician training in all counties to increase awareness and understanding of this complex disease.”

.

The University of Hawaiʻi is expanding its studies of a proposed vaccine for the deadly Ebola virus. A new grant of nearly $112,000 awarded to Liana Medina, a PhD candidate working with Assistant Professor Axel Lehrer at the (JABSOM) makes the additional work possible.

Lehrer’s promising vaccine candidate has already been proven effective in animal clinical studies. Under the grant from the to support minority scientists (Medina is of Hispanic heritage), Medina hopes to show the vaccine might protect against other deadly viruses related to Ebola.

“We are looking to see if our vaccine candidate can protect in other members in the filovirus family, viruses that are related to Ebola virus such as Marburg Virus and Sudan Virus,” said Medina.

“That would be hugely important in the case of a future outbreak in which we don’t know which virus will be infecting the populations,” said Lehrer of the .

Medina was invited to present her research at this summer’s American Society of Virology meeting in Madison, Wisconsin.

For more about the research, including a “Q and A” with the scientist, go to .

—By Tina Shelton

University of Hawaiʻi Mānoa scientists have found that a commercially available, FDA-approved dengue detection kit bests the former “gold standard” test by producing results in under five hours.

A study conducted at the School of Medicine sought to evaluate the use of the commercially available, Food and Drug Administration approved InBios Dengue virus IgM ELISA kit for rapid diagnosis of dengue virus infection. This kit detects anti-dengue virus IgM antibodies, which are produced within three to five days after the onset of dengue fever.

Dengue virus clinical manifestations vary from asymptomatic infection, mild fever to a severe disease characterized by hemorrhage and shock. Dengue virus outbreaks occurred in Hawaiʻi in 2001 and 2011 with 153 and 4 dengue cases, respectively.

Rapid diagnosis of dengue virus infection is critical for effective patient management to prevent the severe dengue disease. In addition, it also helps to prevent the spread of dengue virus infection, which can occur after the bite of dengue-virus infected mosquitoes.

In the study, , published in the Journal of Clinical Microbiology, the School of Medicine’s tested 79 well characterized clinical serum samples collected from Hawaiʻi, Vietnam, Niue, Singapore and American Samoa, where dengue virus outbreaks occurred in the past, using InBios DENV IgM ELISA kit and results were compared to that of “gold standard” DENV IgM antibody capture ELISA (MAC-ELISA). The agreement, sensitivity and specificity of the InBios assay were 94, 92 and 94 percent respectively.

The study found that InBios’ DENV Detect IgM Capture ELISA is advantageous compared to the in-house MAC-ELISA, as the results can be obtained in less than five hours, whereas the in-house MAC-ELISA requires 2 to 3 days. The researchers concluded that InBios DENV IgM Capture ELISA can be effectively used for rapid diagnosis of acute or recent DENV infection.

More about dengue

Dengue is a significant human pathogen of global importance. Today about 2.5 billion people, or 40 percent of the world’s population, live in areas where there is a risk of dengue transmission. Dengue is endemic in at least 100 countries in Asia, the Pacific, the Americas, Africa and the Caribbean.

Recent reports indicate that there are about 350 million people infected with the dengue virus annually worldwide, triple the World Health Organization estimates of 50 to 100 million annual infections, mostly among children.

Recently there have been reported outbreaks in Kenya (May 2013) and Angola (June 2013). Although most of the reported cases in the United States are acquired by travelers or immigrants, autochthonous dengue fever outbreaks have occurred in Brownsville, TX (2005), southern Florida (2009–2011) and Hawaiʻi (2011).

—By Tina Shelton