Texas neighboring research organizations to collaborate on developing drug formulation for DTRA
Texas Biomedical Research Institute’s work with the Ebola virus is leading to continued development of vaccines and drug therapies. Texas Biomed recently announced being part of a team of scientists awarded a $3.4 million contract award from the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) to combine two available medications and test the resulting combination drug therapy against the Ebola virus.
This study is an extension of work previously done in Dr. Robert Davey’s laboratory, where he and his team found that a small molecule called cepharanthine and chloroquine, a drug traditionally used to treat malaria, both independently stopped Ebola virus infection. They discovered in the literature that the two compounds combined had a synergistic effect and are now working with the Southwest Research Institute to determine if a cocktail of the two drugs can inhibit Ebola virus infection.
To learn more about this new study, please see the full release here.