EverGlade Consulting Funding Alert: NIAID Funding Available for Development of Anti-Infective Strategies Against Viral, Bacterial, and Fungal Pathogens and their Toxins

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Jun 28, 2023, 18:30 ET

By Laura Powell, Managing Consultant and Steve Morris, Managing Director

CHARLESTON, S.C., June 28, 2023 /PRNewswire/ -- The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) recently released a Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) aimed at encouraging research proposals on targeted protein and nonprotein degradation for the development of anti-infective strategies against viral, bacterial, and fungal pathogens and toxins. The focus is on exploring novel monofunctional and hetero-bi/tri-functional approaches, such as Molecular Glues and PROTAC-like strategies.

Targeted protein degradation (TPD) is an emerging technology that utilizes the natural proteostasis mechanisms of cells to degrade specific molecules related to infections or diseases. Although TPD has shown promise against various protein targets involved in disease conditions, its application against infectious agents is limited. Recent evidence suggests that TPD can be harnessed to develop anti-infectives by targeting viral-specific proteins during replication and employing host-directed approaches. Additionally, TPD has the potential to combat multi-drug resistance exhibited by pathogens like methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA).

The research objectives outlined in the NOSI include identifying pathogen and host proteins/enzymes for developing degraders, characterizing and optimizing degrader compounds, establishing relevant assays to assess degrader functionality, determining substrate specificity and kinetics of degrader interactions, understanding factors affecting degradative complex formation, discovering selective ligands using ligand discovery technologies, and improving drug-like properties of degraders through structure-activity relationship studies.

The NOSI explicitly states that it does not support proposals involving gene-editing or knock-out/knock-in technologies like CRISPR-Cas9 or RNA interference. Similarly, approaches that utilize targeted protein inactivation (TPI) through the addition of aminoacidic signal sequences to the protein of interest or methods directly altering or targeting the host genome or epigenome are not eligible for funding.

"This is an important effort to address a significant concern in the medical community," stated EverGlade Consulting Founder, Eric Jia-Sobota.

All responses must be submitted on or after October 5, 2023, through July 16, 2026. The full notice can be found here: NOT-AI-23-049: Notice of Special Interest (NOSI): Using Targeted Degradation of Protein and non-Protein Targets for the Development of Novel Anti-Infectives (nih.gov).

If you are developing a product that you think might fall under one of the research areas mentioned above, EverGlade can help you make that determination and pursue a successful contract.

For additional information about EverGlade Consulting, visit: https://www.EverGlade.com

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SOURCE EverGlade Consulting