This technology described in this patent application relates the first reported infectious human parvovirus B19 clone, methods of cloning the parvovirus B19 genome as well as other viral genomes that have secondary DNA structures that are unstable in bacterial cells. The infectious clone and methods of producing the same would be useful in producing infectious virus, which can in turn be used, among other things, to identify and develop therapeutic agents for treatment and/or prevention of human parvovirus B19 infections. The infectious parvovirus B19 clone is also available for licensing.

The technology described in this patent application relates to recombinant viruses for use as vaccines. These viruses contain a single or plurality of sequences encoding antigens from pathogenic viruses heterologous to the recombinant virus.

The invention can be used to develop tests that are much more rapid than conventional tests for determining drug resistance. It relates to the discovery that a putative gene of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTb) with no previously identified function is responsible for the ability of the bacteria to activate a class of second line thioamide drugs used for MTb infections. The gene, termed "etaA", codes for the synthesis of a monooxygenase, the enzyme responsible for the oxidative activation of the drugs.

The current technology relates to the construction, characterization and immunogenicity of modified vaccinia Ankara (MVA) recombinant viruses. The MVA double recombinant viruses express modified/truncated HIV-1 Env and mutated HIV Gag Pol under the control of vaccinia virus early/late promoters. This technology describes the MVA double recombinant viruses made by homologous recombination of single MVA recombinants, one expressing Env and one expressing Gag Pol. These single MVA recombinants are made using a transiently expressed GFP marker that is deleted in the final viruses.

A transmission blocking vaccine developed against malaria contains a recombinant virus, which encodes a unique portion of the sexual stage surface antigen of Plasmodium falciparum (referred to as Pfs25), or the Pfs25 protein purified from infected host cells. Mice inoculated with the recombinant virus developed antibodies capable of blocking transmission of the virus. None of the monoclonal antibodies known to block transmission recognize the reduced Pfs25 antigen. This vaccine, which induces high, long-lasting titers at low cost, can be useful for controlling malaria.

This technology relates to the use of thymic stromal lymphopoietin (TSLP) to induce CD4+ T cell proliferation. This proliferation could be of particular relevance for patients in whom this cell population has been significantly reduced by HIV/AIDS or other conditions resulting in immunodeficiency. The proliferation of isolated CD4+ T cells can be induced through direct contact with TSLP or a nucleic acid encoding TSLP.

Monoclonal antibodies directed at the proteins of murine leukemia viruses (MuLVs) have some value as immunological reagents, but differ greatly in their applicability. The kit described in this invention uses a monoclonal antibody designated 83A25, which identifies almost all ecotropic, xenotropic, polytropic, and amphotropic MuLVs. It can be used in a wide variety of procedures, including focal immunofluorescence assays on live or fixed monolayers, immunoblotting, immunoprecipitation, immunohistochemical, and flow cytometric procedures.

The invention discloses a vaccine which comprises lipooligosaccharide (LOS) isolated from N. meningitidis and conjugated to a carrier protein. The invention also discloses a method of making the acellular vaccine. The method consists of two main steps. In the first step the lipooligosaccharide (LOS), chosen so it does not contain the lacto-N-neotetraose human antigen (LNnT), is detoxified by a novel procedure which uses hydrazine to remove the O-linked fatty acids. In the second step, the detoxified LOS (dLOS) is covalently conjugated to a carrier protein such as Tetanus Toxoid (TT).

Available for licensing and commercial development is a method of inhibiting SARS-CoV replication, propagation and transmission using 2-cyano-3,12-dioxooleana-1,9-dien-28-oic (CDDO). Severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) is an infectious atypical pneumonia that has recently been recognized in patients in 32 countries and regions. The atypical pneumonia with unknown etiology was initially observed in Guangdong Province, China.

Hepatitis B virus (HBV) chronically infects over 300 million people worldwide. Many of them will die of chronic hepatitis or hepatocellular carcinoma. The present technology relates to the isolation and characterization of a novel neutralizing chimpanzee monoclonal antibody to HBV. The antibody was identified through a combinatorial antibody library constructed from bone marrow cells of a chimpanzee experimentally infected with HBV. The selected monoclonal antibody has been shown to react equally well with wild-type HBV and the most common neutralization escape mutant variants.