Development of a broad spectrum respiratory antiviral treatment

造成严重和轻微呼吸道感染的病毒在死亡和公共劳动力生产力损失方面都是一个重大的社会负担。当前的COVID-19大流行凸显了对广谱抗病毒治疗的需求，这些治疗可用于治疗当前和未来引起严重和轻微呼吸道感染的病毒。OVO正在开发一种新的呼吸道抗病毒平台，可用于对抗所有呼吸道病毒，并可迅速适应新的和正在出现的威胁。这是通过使用有缺陷的干扰粒子（dip）实现的。当病毒复制其基因组并引入错误导致错误的、有缺陷的拷贝时，dip就形成了。这些有缺陷的基因组不仅不再能够引起感染，而且其中一部分具有使它们能够作为病毒的天然抑制剂的特性。它们能够阻止传染性病毒的复制。在某些条件下，这些有缺陷的复制体可以完全阻止病毒感染。因此，它们是自然发生的自我复制的治疗方法。OVO生物制造公司正在利用这些缺陷基因组的抑制特性来开发一种治疗方法，用于对抗所有导致呼吸道感染的病毒。该项目将建立概念验证数据，显示这种治疗方法对所有引起呼吸道感染的主要病毒的有效性。

Viruses causing both major and minor respiratory infections are a major societal burden both in terms of deaths and loss of productivity in the public workforce. The current COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for broad spectrum antiviral treatments that can be used against current and future viruses that both cause major and minor respiratory infections.OVO are developing a new respiratory antiviral platform that can be used against all respiratory viruses and can be quickly adapted to for new and emerging threats. This is through the use of defective interfering particles (DIPs). DIPs are formed when viruses copy their genomes and introduce errors resulting in erroneous, defective copies. Not only are these defective genomes no longer able to cause infections, but a proportion of these have properties enabling them to act as natural inhibitors of viruses. They are able block replication of an infectious virus. Under certain conditions these defective copies can completely stop viral infection. They are therefore naturally occuring therapeutics which are self replicating.OVO Biomanufacturing are exploiting the inhibitory characteristics of these defective genomes to create a treatment for use against all viruses that cause respiratory infection. This project will build proof-of-concept data showing the effectiveness of this therapeutic against all major viruses causing respiratory infection.