PI: Dr. Deborah Fuller
Location: UW Microbiology
Website: https://depts.washington.edu/cfar/discover-cfar/cores/immunology/non-human-primate-immunology-subcore/deborah-fuller

New anti-flu therapeutics

The Fuller laboratory is collaborating with the Baker lab at the Institute of Protein Design in two exciting projects: 1) Development of novel influenza antivirals and 2) investigating computational designed proteins as new immunogens for a universal influenza vaccine. For both projects, the overall goal is to achieve broad spectrum protection against a wide range of influenza variants including emerging strains with pandemic potential. Working closely with the Baker lab, our laboratory has shown that novel computationally designed proteins can potently inhibit influenza infection (antivirals) or when expressed as DNA vaccines, induce broadly reactive antibody (vaccines) in vivo. These projects are iterative and cutting edge with computational designed proteins generating unexpected and exciting effects on the control of influenza replication in vivo and results in vivo driving refinement and optimization of the protein design. Using both the mouse and ferret models of influenza infection, new projects include investigating a wider range of protein designs and defining the immunological and virological mechanisms underlying efficacy including the effects of the antivirals on resistant viruses and immune mechanisms of cross-protection induced by the computationally designed DNA vaccines.