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First vaccines targeting 'cruise ship virus' sail into clinical trials

Nature Medicine volume 19, pages 1076–1077 (2013)Cite this article

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A few months ago, Charles Arntzen dined on a plate of buttery mussels. That night, he fell ill with what he believes was norovirus, a nasty bug known for causing profuse vomiting and diarrhea. It was a cruel twist of fate for someone who studies the virus at the Center for Infectious Diseases and Vaccinology at Arizona State University in Tempe. Knowing all too well that no specific medicine exists to treat norovirus illness (or even to prevent the problem), Arntzen buckled down in the bathroom and spent the better part of four days “getting rid of everything,” as he puts it. “I was so miserable I couldn't do a thing.”

Arntzen hopes that soon others won't have to endure the same experience. He and many other researchers are now working to develop a vaccine against the highly contagious, vomit-inducing virus, with the lead candidate already tested in humans and at least two more contenders slated to enter clinical trials in the next couple of years. And on the therapeutics front, researchers from the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) reported in the September issue of the Journal of Virology that they had produced the first monoclonal antibodies proven to neutralize human norovirus and block infection in chimpanzees1.

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Authors
  1. Cassandra Willyard
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Willyard, C. First vaccines targeting 'cruise ship virus' sail into clinical trials. Nat Med 19, 1076–1077 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nm0913-1076

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