నైరూప్య

Exploring alternative preventative therapies for dengue.

Kym Lowry

 Although the tropical disease, dengue, has been studied exhaustedly for over 60 years, we are no closer to possessing a safe and protective vaccine to prevent the estimated 390 million infections yearly. Dengue virus, which causes fever, joint and muscle pain, vomiting, and skin rash, mutates rapidly to remain a continuous biological threat to half the world’s population. The overall complexities of the human immune response, together with the constantly evolving virus, make it a difficult disease to target effectively with a vaccine. Since 2017, we have been investigating a novel therapy using Defective Interfering virus Particles (DIPs), which are naturally produced by the virus during infection. We have found that these small particles can interfere, and thereby reduce, parental virus replication with the hope that the host clears infection earlier for a better disease outcome. We aim to identify and investigate the mode of action of these particles for therapeutic capability.