EpiVax Statement on Coronavirus (2019-nCOV) – What we know; what to expect

(This is a high level review about a leading, local and international virus and immunization company, EpiVax)

EpiVax Statement

Unless you have been in a media blackout these past two weeks, you are well aware of the latest public health threat: 2019-nCoV.

This new strain of coronavirus is currently linked to nearly thirty thousand infections and rising fatalities in China, and additional cases have been brought to other areas of the world. by air travelers.

Here’s the EpiVax perspective:

Is it worse than SARS? 

That’s hard to say. Younger people may be more resilient, but a reported 25-30% of cases require intensive care. In truth, we don’t know because we don’t have the denominators (number of infected, number recovering), we only have the available daily updates on the situation which are available here.

Isn’t it just like the common cold? 

Afterall, the common cold is caused by coronaviruses. That would be nice, but, no. Our analysis of the conservation of T cell epitopes found in currently circulating strains of coronaviruses with the novel 2019 n-COV shows poor conservation of T cell epitopes (at left), this is also true for other coronaviruses like SARS, MERS, etc, at right. That’s why this virus is going to be far worse than the common cold or the flu. (For medical updates see here).

Can you make a vaccine for it?

Yes we can. And, because it is an RNA virus, has the opportunity to ‘go stealth‘ due to the mutability of its genome, making it a bit more difficult. But we are working swiftly, under the direction of EpiVax Vaccine Director, Dr. Lenny Moise, to develop a computational plan of attack. Important to note – it has human-like sequences that may abrogate immune response. Like HIV. Like HCV. See below a JanusMatrix analysis of the 2019-nCOV spike protein and read see our blog post here

About EpiVax

EpiVax is an immunology company and has developed comprehensive analytical capabilities in the field of computational immunology.

We are dedicated to applying our tools (in-silico, in-vitro and in-vivo) to re-engineering therapeutic proteins and to designing new vaccines.

We leverage our proprietary tools and expertise, thereby adding value to our clients’ research and development efforts while applying them to our own pipeline of therapeutic proteins and vaccine candidates.

EpiVax understands the scientific, financial, and regulatory challenges faced by today’s pharmaceutical industry and applies this knowledge at every step from design, to execution, and to IND.

About Anne (Annie) S. De Groot, M.D.

Founder, CEO & CSO, EpiVax, Inc

Anne De Groot is internationally known for her research on the human immune system’s response to vaccines and therapeutics. She graduated from Smith College in 1978 and earned her medical degree at University of Chicago in 1983. After internal medical residency, she obtained advanced training in immunoinformatics and vaccinology with Michael Good, Russell Howard and Jay Berzofsky at the National Institutes of Health, and then returned for a fellowship in ID at New England Medical Center.

For more information, go to: https://epivax.com