Scientists of New York Blood Center Discover Promising Compound to Protect Against SARS Virus Infection

3/22/2004

From: Gladwyn Lopez of Rubenstein Communications, 212-843-9231 Rich Murphy of New York Blood Center, 212-570-3101 or 917-439-1727

NEW YORK, March 22 -- As recently reported in The Lancet (Vol. 363: 938-947, 2004), scientists from New York Blood Center's Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute and other research partners, have identified a new peptide that would potentially protect patients from SARS virus infection.

"The discovery of this new anti-SARS virus peptide marks a leap forward for us to develop specific antiviral drugs for saving lives of people infected by SARS virus and hopefully preventing SARS from reaching epidemic proportions," said Dr. Shibo Jiang, Head of the Viral Immunology Laboratory at Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute. "The ability to identify the anti-SARS virus peptide was made possible by research gained from the discovery of a potent anti-HIV peptide a decade ago. We applied strategies used back then to attack a new problem today."

In the early 1990s, Drs. Shibo Jiang and A. Robert Neurath, Head of the Biochemical Virology Laboratory at Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute, and colleagues first discovered a very potent anti-HIV peptide, which opened a new avenue for developing novel fusion inhibitors against enveloped viruses that share a similar fusogenic mechanism such as HIV, Ebola virus, influenza viruses, respiratory syncytial virus, and measles virus. The scientists plan to design and synthesize more potent anti-SARS virus peptides, which will be developed as drugs for early-stage treatment of SARS virus infection and prevention of SARS with nasal spray or inhalation formulations.

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EDITORS: Dr. Shibo Jiang, Head of the Viral Immunology Laboratory at Lindsley F. Kimball Research Institute is available for interview by contacting Gladwyn Lopez at 212-843-9231 or Rich Murphy at 212-570-3101.