Description:

Title: Therapeutic Interfering Particles

Abstract: Theories have long proposed that Therapeutic Interfering Particles (TIPs)—a class of Defective Interfering Particles (DIPs) engineered to have R0>1 and stably propagate to new cells—could overcome major barriers to disease control. TIPs exert their antiviral effects through competition for viral replication and packaging machinery and as a consequence of their conditional replication were predicted to act as single-administration, resistance-proof antivirals (Metzger et al., 2011). We recently reported engineering of the first TIPs and the first demonstration of the hypothesized TIP therapeutic effect (Tanner et al. 2019; Chaturvedi et al. Cell 2021; Notton et al. 2021; Chaturvedi et al. PNAS, 2022). For SARS-CoV-2, a single, intranasal administration of TIPs to Syrian golden hamsters dramatically lowers virus by 3-Log10s and protects against severe disease, even for neutralization-resistant variants (beta, delta, etc…). For HIV-1, a single injection of TIPs durably suppresses highly-pathogenic virus, long-term, by 4-Log10s, in non-human primates—without emergence of resistance—and protects against death (Pitchai et al. Science 2024).  These data provide proof-of-concept for a novel class of antivirals with the capacity to overcome key challenges in infectious disease control.

Bio: Leor Weinberger is the Director of the Gladstone Center for Cell Circuitry and William and Ute Bowes Distinguished Professor in the Department of Biochemistry and Biophysics and the Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry at the University of California San Francisco. The Weinberger Lab uses mathematical and experimental approaches to decode the regulatory principles viruses use to select between alternate fates. They then exploit these principles to develop unique therapeutic targets and ultimately new antiviral strategies.

Learn more about Leor Weinberger's research

The NSF-Simons National Institute for Theory and Mathematics in Biology Seminar Series aims to bring together a mix of mathematicians and biologists to foster discussion and collaboration between the two fields. The seminar series will take place on Fridays from 10am - 11am at the NITMB offices in the John Hancock Center in downtown Chicago. There will be both an in-person and virtual component.