DARPA produces 10 million flu vaccine doses in one month

David Szondy — Sat, 26 Jan 2013 20:18:23 GMT

A familiar news topic during the flu season is the difficulties that the authorities face in producing enough flu vaccine fast enough to control the outbreak. That’s a serious enough problem, but when the influenza outbreak turns out to be the start of a global pandemic, then hundreds of millions of lives could be at risk. To combat this, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has developed a new way of making vaccines that has turned out 10 million doses of H1N1 influenza vaccine in a month, in a recent test run.

Category: Infectious Diseases, Illnesses and conditions, Body and Mind

Tags: Viruses and Bacteria, DARPA, Plants, Vaccines, Influenza, H1N1

New antiviral drug could cure nearly any viral infection – including the common cold

Darren Quick — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 04:10:36 GMT

While not delivering a knockout blow, the discovery of penicillin in 1928 provided a potent weapon in the fight against a wide range of bacterial infections. The quest to develop a similarly broad-spectrum drug to fight viral infections has proven more difficult but now researchers at MIT's Lincoln Laboratory have designed a drug that has so far proven effective against all 15 viruses it has been tested on. These include rhinoviruses that cause the common cold, H1N1 influenza, a stomach virus, a polio virus, dengue fever and several other types of hemorrhagic fever.

Category: Infectious Diseases, Illnesses and conditions, Body and Mind

Tags: Drugs, MIT, Infections, Virus, Influenza, H1N1