• Email Us: [email protected]
  • Contact Us: +1 718 874 1545
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Medical Market Report

  • Home
  • All Reports
  • About Us
  • Contact Us

World-First mRNA Vaccine Could Topple Number One Killer Of Baby Asian Elephants

July 9, 2024 by Deborah Bloomfield

A deadly disease for baby Asian elephants is the target for an mRNA vaccine that has been administered to an elephant for the first time. Elephant endotheliotropic herpesvirus (EEHV) is the number one killer for Asian elephant calves living under managed care in North America and Europe, and is a significant threat for free-ranging populations. It has also been connected to a number of African elephant deaths in the United States.

EEHV is so deadly because it can cause hemorrhagic disease characterized by damaged blood vessels, bleeding, and organ failure. To prevent this, the EEHV mRNA vaccine exposes elephants to the viral proteins that enable the virus to enter the host’s cells, effectively preparing them so that they can launch an immune attack should the same viral proteins come knocking again. This means their bodies can fight off EEHV before it’s had a chance to take hold.

The world-first vaccine was developed by Dr Paul Ling of the Baylor College of Medicine in partnership with Houston Zoo, with a helping hand from a few unexpected places. There’s Colossal Biosciences, the de-extinction giants trying to bring back mammoths and save a few endangered species along the way, and the COVID-19 vaccine.

Colossal helped to provide research support and acceleration funding for the vaccine. Meanwhile, the rapid deployment of the COVID-19 vaccine – and all the pipelines that enabled its fast development – energized the efforts to develop the mRNA-based vaccine for EEHV.

an asian elephant calf under its mother

EEHV is the number one killer for Asian elephant calves in managed care.

Image credit: worradirek / Shutterstock.com

Extensive preclinical trials demonstrated that the resulting vaccine could induce an immune response without adverse side effects. It has now been given to a 40-year-old Asian elephant named Tess, who will be monitored to see if the vaccine can be rolled out to other elephants.

Tess’s shot targets the EEHV1A strain of the virus, which is behind the majority of deadly cases among Asian elephants. However, the team behind its creation is hopeful that it can be easily modified to target other strains in circulation, including the one affecting African elephants.

Advertisement

“The goal of the vaccine is first, to be safe to the elephants upon administration,” Colossal Biosciences told IFLScience. “Secondly, to stimulate the immune system of the elephant to activate immune cells and release antibodies that neutralize the virus upon infection or activation.”

“Thirdly, the memory cells of the immune system have to ‘remember’ to neutralize the same virus in the future in a faster, more efficient manner. And finally, to identify all vulnerable individuals in zoos and administer it at the right window of time to provide protection, which should be usually around the time their young bodies are weaned off the protective antibodies provided by the mother early in life.”

It’s a big step to safeguarding young captive elephants from this deadly disease, as well as those out in the wild, but it’s also hoped it could have applications in human medicine.

Advertisement

“The technology to develop the first EEHV mRNA vaccine is based on the already successfully deployed technology of the Covid vaccine,” added Colossal. “But success in immunizing against EEHV will further enable more focused efforts for vaccine development in other human herpesviruses (HHVs) that are also double stranded DNA viruses, and more broadly to other viruses in the Herpesviridae family which does include HSVs.”

Deborah Bloomfield
Deborah Bloomfield

Related posts:

  1. ‘Incredible fear’ among women across Afghanistan -U.N. official
  2. Stocks find fleeting relief in Evergrande deal; Fed looms
  3. Without The Ozone Layer, This Is What Our Planet Would Be Like
  4. Eight People Attempted To Live In A Biosphere For Two Years – Then It All Went Terribly Wrong

Source Link: World-First mRNA Vaccine Could Topple Number One Killer Of Baby Asian Elephants

Filed Under: News

Primary Sidebar

  • This Is What People Actually See When They Have A Near-Death Experience
  • Bird Flu Is Making Headlines Once Again: What’s The Current Situation?
  • A Whale Protected A Scientist From A Huge Shark. A Year And 15 Days Later, They Were Reunited
  • This 600-Year-Old Inca Building Was Designed For An Incredible Acoustic Reason
  • Up To 90 Percent Of People Have This Health Condition. Just As Many Have Never Heard Of It
  • A Forgotten 19th Century “Vortex” Model Of The Atom May Help Explain Why The Universe Exists At All
  • Potential Environmental Trigger For Autism Identified, But Don’t Expect MAHA Action
  • Interstellar Object 3I/ATLAS’s Tail Appears To Have Changed Direction
  • “It Seemingly Put On An Otherworldly Show”: Watch As This Beautiful Deep-Sea Octopus Glides Gracefully Through The Ocean
  • Have You Heard About America’s Government Cheese Caves? They’ve Got Over 600 Million Kilograms Of The Stuff Stashed Away
  • There Could Be A Surprising Health Benefit To Having Gray Hair
  • New Answer To The Fermi Paradox? Cognitive Horizon Hypothesis May Explain Why Aliens Haven’t Contacted Us
  • What Happened When Patient B-19 Was Given A Brain Stimulation Device And A Button?
  • The Ice Age Squirrel That Enabled A Plant’s Resurrection 31,800 Years Later
  • The First Video Game Came Long Before Pong And Was Invented By A Manhattan Project Physicist
  • Monster Hoaxes In The Age Of AI: Seeing Isn’t Believing Anymore
  • Everyone Thought This Ancient City Was Destroyed By Plague. A New Analysis Says It Never Happened
  • The “Mind’s Eye” Doesn’t Focus Like Our Vision, Even For People Who Have One
  • Strep Throat Or Sore Throat: What’s The Difference?
  • Reptiles “Pee” Crystals, But What Are They Made Of? Scientists Wanted To Find Out
  • Business
  • Health
  • News
  • Science
  • Technology
  • +1 718 874 1545
  • +91 78878 22626
  • [email protected]
Office Address
Prudour Pvt. Ltd. 420 Lexington Avenue Suite 300 New York City, NY 10170.

Powered by Prudour Network

Copyrights © 2025 · Medical Market Report. All Rights Reserved.

Go to mobile version