The U.S. federal government has recently extended the period of performance on three Research and Development contracts in support of a Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) biodefense consortium project.
The consortium is for the Development of Medical Countermeasures for Botulinum Neurotoxin Intoxication Focused on Therapeutics and Neuroregenerative Medicines, a multicenter program in which directed research projects are submitted, evaluated and selected to sponsor a network of collaboration amongst researchers.
Under the multicenter collaboration, three proposals were selected to be administered in coordination with U.S Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD) collaborators:
Montclair State University: Contributing to the botulinum drug discovery effort by synthesizing small molecule drug candidates for treatment of botulinum toxin exposure and optimizing their pharmaceutical properties.
Institute of Advanced Sciences: Supports the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Chemical Defense (USAMRICD) by performing high throughput screening of natural product and small molecule libraries.
Ossianix Inc: Providing an alternative to traditional inhibitors by developing small single chain shark antibodies as potential inhibitors for catalytic activity.
MSU and the Institute for Advanced Sciences will each receive an additional $75,000 to support completion of activities in 2015 under the first research cycle of the consortium. Ossianix will be receiving a completion date extension using the funding made available at the time of initial contract. The three research contracts will end on December 31, 2015.
Research contracts to be performed in Fiscal Year 2016 to support the development of medical countermeasures will be addressed competitively through the U.S Army Medical Research and Materiel Command’s (USAMRMC) Broad Agency Announcement.
