World NTD Day Quiz: Test your knowledge of NTD innovations

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. The Genomic Surveillance Unit at the Wellcome Sanger Institute and the Centre for Epidemic Response and Innovation at Stellenbosch University are partnering to advance the practice of genomic surveillance, which has been around for decades but really came to the forefront during the COVID-19 pandemic and has the potential to improve global efforts against other infectious diseases, including malaria and cholera. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there was huge global investment in genomic surveillance infrastructure, with the Stellenbosch lab being the first to confirm the discovery of the Beta and Omicron variants. In the last year alone, the work of the two labs has contributed to doubling the number of sequences available for dengue, chikungunya, and malaria parasites. Genomic surveillance uses sequencing to get data about the genetic material of a pathogen, which is then used to track how the pathogen is changing or spreading.Researchers from the Health and Medical Research Institute at Japan’s National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology have developed a bioluminescent assay that could serve as a rapid, low-cost, and convenient test to complement laboratory testing for COVID-19. The test uses a bioluminescent molecule found in some small crustaceans that glows when it reacts with the virus that causes COVID-19 in a saliva sample and can be used with commercially available handheld luminometers at the point-of-care. The research team is planning for initial commercialization in the Japanese and US markets.ProteinLogic and Stellenbosch University will use a $1.35 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to determine whether an immunoassay technology being developed by ProteinLogic can be used to monitor treatment response to tuberculosis (TB) antimicrobial chemotherapy in patients. ProteinLogic's ImmiPrint testing technology is a protein-based test based on predictive models developed through machine learning that aims to offer rapid, efficient, and cost-effective discovery of diagnostic biomarkers across multiple diseases. Its new partner, Stellenbosch University, has been leading clinical trials on TB diagnostic biomarkers. In the face of the growing threat of drug-resistant strains of Mycobacterium tuberculosis, there is an urgent need for new technologies to monitor the effectiveness of current treatments, in addition to the need for novel treatments and prevention methods for TB.

Interested in more global health innovation news? Every week GHTC scours media reports worldwide to deliver essential global health R&D news and content to your inbox. Sign up now to receive our weekly R&D News Roundup email. A recently published study, led by the Vaccine Research Center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), found that three different antibodies independently protected monkeys from acquiring simian-HIV, findings that could inform the development of an HIV vaccine for people. The antibodies, one isolated from a person living with HIV and the other two from rhesus macaques, all target the fusion peptide, a site on an HIV surface protein that helps the virus fuse with and enter cells, with the results validating the fusion peptide as a potential target for a human vaccine. Hopefully, the approach will continue to show promise in future studies, although a vaccine for humans would need to be able to generate multiple varieties of antibodies directed at the fusion peptide to increase the likelihood that the vaccine could prevent the full diversity of HIV variants.A study published last week found that simnotrelvir, a COVID-19 drug administered as a series of pills, was effective in speeding recovery from mild to moderate disease. The drug was tested primarily in young people with standard levels of risk, a change from earlier antiviral drug trials during the pandemic, which included mostly people at high risk of severe COVID-19. The researchers combined simnotrelvir with a component of Paxlovid, currently the most widely used COVID-19 pill, with strong results and the only downsides similar to those of Paxlovid: bad taste and incompatibility with some common medications. Simnotrelvir has been available in China under an emergency use authorization since early last year and has been incredibly popular due, in part, to its much lower price tag compared to Paxlovid.Last week, the Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) announced that it is awarding $633,000 to Intravacc to develop a vaccine for gonorrhea, which is the world’s second most reported sexually transmitted infection. The new vaccine could be a game changer in curbing new cases of gonorrhea, as well as addressing the rising spread of resistance of Neisseria gonorrhoeae to the only antibiotic still effective in treating it. The funding will support the early-stage development of Intravacc’s meningococcal outer membrane vesical vaccine, which includes antigens designed to protect against infections caused by N. gonorrhoeae.