STEPHANOPOULOS: And Richard, pressing it also means staying out of the virus itself. And you say you've talked to a lot of scientists who are tracking this virus. You say the question of how it's mutating is of significance for every single person on Earth.
So what do we know about how this virus is mutating?
You know, there's some concern out there that it could transform itself into an airborne virus.
Is that a real concern?
PRESTON: Well, the whole notion of airborne needs to be defined. I think there's been a lot of loose talk among folks about what do we mean when we say airborne. And there are really two different ways that a virus can go airborne. And what is what they call droplet infection. That's if you cough or sneeze or if you throw tiny little liquid droplets into the air. They can only go about three feet and they fall to the ground. That's considered direct contact.
But their other way that a virus could mutate and change, which Ebola is not doing and isn't going to do anytime soon is for the virus to be able to be dried out in small particles like dust motes that can then float long distances through the air and then infect somebody right through the lung.
We've never seen a virus do this as it evolves in nature. It's very unlikely that Ebola will do it here.
STEPHANOPOULOS: And how about the efforts to come up with a vaccine that could combat it as well?
Are they staying ahead of the mutation?
PRESTON: Well, you know, it's very interesting. There are scientists at Harvard and MIT who are reading the code of Ebola. Ebola is a fast mutator and it changes constantly. It even changes a little bit inside the body of each person who is infected with it.
So the question is we need to keep our eyes on the enemy. We need to see exactly how it's changing because as it changes, all of the drugs and vaccines and tests for it are all keyed in to the genetic code of this virus.
We are happy to report that the construction of our state of the art, modern, cGMP capable, clinical scale, multipurpose, nanomedicines manufacturing facility at 1 Controls Drive, Shelton, CT, was completed in June, 2014, while managing customized equipment delivery schedules and some weather-related delays. We are now completing the special equipment fit-out modifications. We have contracted out the facility validation to a third party. Informally, we have started working in the new facility. Once the facility validation is complete, we intend to move most of our work in a phased manner over the next year or so to the new facility in order to minimize impact on our ongoing projects. The facility was built by Inno-Haven, LLC, which is managed by Dr. Anil Diwan, who is also our President and Founder. Dr. Diwan raised funding for this project from personal funds, certain sales of his NNVC founder's stock under a 10b(5) plan in 2011, and loans and other borrowings from certain other private individuals over time. In 2011, Dr. Diwan took the risk of building a state of art nanomedicines manufacturing facility on his own, independently, with the intention of performing contract manufacturing for third parties as well as for NanoViricides. At that time, NanoViricides did not have the financial strength necessary for undertaking such a capital-intensive project. Later, in February, 2013, NanoViricides, Inc. signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Inno-Haven for the total renovation of the 1 Controls Drive, Shelton, CT, facility purchased by Inno-Haven into a pilot scale cGMP facility and R&D laboratory space as per NanoViricides specifications. ... The Company recently restarted our anti-Ebola drug development program, in response to the current Ebola epidemic raging in West Africa that continues to expand geographically and grow exponentially in spite of the strong efforts by the international community. There are no drugs or vaccines available for this infection, although some vaccines or drugs are being accelerated in clinical trials. The limitations of current anti-Ebola drug and vaccine development approaches are well known. Given the rapid mutation rate observed for the current Ebola virus, vaccines, antibodies, siRNA, and antisense RNA drugs based on previous strains of Ebola virus can be generally thought to have limited applicability, even if they succeed initially. In contrast, the nanoviricides® approach of developing a drug that imitates the sites to which the virus binds, no matter how much it mutates, is promising. In addition, if a successful drug candidate results, we believe that our production capacity would be responsive to the current requirements for the containment of the Ebola epidemic in West Africa.
The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story is a best-selling[1] 1994 non-fiction thriller by Richard Preston about the origins and incidents involving viral hemorrhagic fevers, particularly ebolaviruses and marburgviruses. The basis of the book was Preston's 1992 New Yorker article "Crisis in the Hot Zone".[2]
The filoviruses Ebola virus (EBOV), Sudan virus (SUDV), Marburg virus (MARV), and Ravn virus (RAVV) are Biosafety Level 4 agents. Biosafety Level 4 agents are extremely dangerous to humans because they are very infectious, have a high case-fatality rate, and there are no known prophylactics, treatments, or cures. Along with describing the history of the diseases caused by these two Central African diseases, Ebola virus disease (EVD) and Marburg virus disease (MVD), Preston describes a 1989 incident in which a relative of Ebola virus named Reston virus (RESTV), was discovered at a primate quarantine facility in Reston, Virginia, less than fifteen miles (24 km) away from Washington, DC. The virus found at the facility was a mutated form of the original Ebola virus, and was initially mistaken for Simian Hemorrhagic Fever (SHV). The original Reston facility involved in the incident, located at 1946 Isaac Newton Square, was subsequently torn down sometime between 1995 and 1998.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone
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