Wistar Institute
| Wistar Institute link Website | |
|---|---|
| Formation | 1892 |
| Founder | Caspar Wistar |
| Headquarters | Philadelphia,Pennsylvania,USA |
| Interests | DNA vaccine |
| Membership | Dario Altieri,H. Fred Clark,Carlo M. Croce,Peter C. Doherty,Leonard Hayflick,Helen Dean King,Hilary Koprowski,David Kritchevsky,Gerd Maul,Ruth Patrick,Stanley Plotkin,Giorgio Trinchieri,Tadeusz J. Wiktor, Ami Patel, Richard M. Horowitz,L. Patrick Gage,Noam Auslander,Irene Bertolini,Daniel Claiborne,Amelia Escolano,Alessandro Gardini,Aaron R. Goldman,Meenhard Herlyn,Andrew Kossenkov,Chengyu Liang,Paul M. Lieberman,Qin Liu,Jozef Madzo,,Luis J. Montaner,Maureen E. Murphy,Yulia Nefedova,Kazuko Nishikura,Jesper Pallesen,Alex Price,Joseph Salvino,Kavitha Sarma,Rahul S. Shinde,Avi Srivastava,Hsin-Yao Tang,Italo Tempera,Bin Tian, Filippo Veglia,Jessie Villanueva,Daniel Kulp |
The Wistar Institute is a Philadelphia-based research institution in biomedical science with special focuses in oncology, immunology, infectious disease, and vaccine research.
Hillary Koprowski
While Jonas Salk and Sabin became public figures for their polio vaccine, Hillary Koprowski of Wistar had to fight off allegations that his vaccine trials had launched the global Aids epidemic. In his 1999 book The River: A Journey to the Source of HIV and Aids, British journalist Edward Hooper suggested that during trials of Koprowski's vaccine in the Congo in the late 1950s the vaccine had become contaminated with the chimpanzee version of HIV, introducing the infection into the human population.[1][2] The theory then was "debunked", of course.
DNA jabs
Wistar professor Ami Patel researches DNA vaccine development against Ebola virus, Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus, and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and multiple studies in the rapidly advancing field of DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies (DMAbs).[3]
In February 2022, the Institute developed a more targeted "Covid vaccine". "This is among the first second-generation vaccines that will have more advanced features and broader protection," said Daniel Kulp. The 'vaccine" combines three technologies — immune focusing, self-assembling nanoparticles, and DNA delivery — into a single platform for the first time.[4]
DARPA funding
In December 2020, Wistar was one of the recipients of a $37.6 million grant over two years from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) and the Joint Program Executive Office for Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear Defense (JPEO-CBRND) for" rapid preclinical development and translational studies of DNA-encoded monoclonal antibodies (DMAbs) as countermeasures for COVID-19".[5]
Members
Members include some select Board of Trustees members, and some historical or still working scientists.[6]
References
- ↑ http://www.aidsorigins.com/the-river-a-journey-to-the-source-of-hiv-and-aids-2021-edition-by-edward-hooper/
- ↑ http://www.aidsorigins.com/hilary-koprowski-the-daily-telegraph-obituary/
- ↑ https://www.contagionlive.com/view/differentiating-between-dna-and-mrna-platforms
- ↑ https://www.wistar.org/featured-news/wistar-scientists-behind-the-next-wave-of-covid-19-vaccines/
- ↑ https://www.wistar.org/press-releases/darpa-and-jpeo-cbrnd-award-37-6m-to-the-wistar-institute-and-collaborators-at-inovio-astrazeneca-penn-indiana-university-to-develop-innovative-covid-19-treatment/
- ↑ https://www.wistar.org/about-wistar/who-we-are/board-trustees/
