Enterovirus D68 (EVD68), a member of the Enterovirus genus, has become increasingly associated with alarming cases of acute flaccid myelitis in children and neonates across the United States. Additionally, EVD68 causes severe repiratory disease, especially in children with asthma, resulting in high rates of admittance to intensive care units with many patients requiring mechanical ventilation. The accelerated development of vaccines and therapeutics is urgently needed to prevent current and future outbreaks of EVD68 infection as no such interventions currently exist. Epidemiologic and preclinical vaccine studies strongly suggest that antibodies play a role in protection from disease. However, despite the finding that almost everyone older than 5 yrs possess neutralizing antibodies against EVD68, outbreaks still continue to occur, indicating that EVD68 is likely undergoing antigenic changes. To combat contemporary and emerging EVD68 viruses, HDT Biocorp proposes to develop an RNA-based antibody platform that can be rapidly adapted to new antigenic variants of EVD68, by (1) using RNA vaccines that produce EVD68 virus-like particles in vivo to immunize alpacas for identification of camelid antibodies against EVD68 by phage-display and (2) generate and characterize RNA herapeutics encoding select camelid antibodies for in situ production following nanoparticle delivery, eliminating the need for cell-based production.
