Researchers at Colorado State University are helping to develop an experimental Ebola vaccine for use by the military.
The university's BioMARC lab, a high-containment biopharmaceutical facility, will produce a small amount of the vaccine for the Defense Department. Military researchers will test the vaccine in a small human trial.
BioMARC was awarded the subcontract from the Department of Defense's Medical Countermeasures Systems Joint Vaccine Acquisition program. The program has previously worked to develop and synthesize vaccines protecting soldiers (and later civilians) against anthrax and smallpox.
"BioMARC will make contributions towards furthering the development of a replicon vaccine platform containing a non-infection Ebola antigen, which has been show to protect nonhuman primates from an intramuscular and aerosol challenge with the Ebola virus," officials at Colorado State said in a statement.
"We welcome the opportunity to assist in a project that is of such great significance to protecting human health," Dennis Pierro, BioMARC's director and a professor at Colorado State University, added.
The lab will also synthesize a small production of an experimental Marburg vaccine. Marburg is another deadly disease found in Africa.
"Colorado State has long been on the front lines of fighting infectious diseases in humans and animals -- from retroviruses to vector-borne viral diseases," school president Tony Frank said. "We're proud now to be able to put our resources and expertise to work in the pressing fight against Ebola."