SILVER LAKE RESEARCH CORPORATION SBIR Phase I Award,

The investigation of mechanismspotential treatmentsand vaccines for infectious diseases relies on animal models that can be infected by the same agent as humans and display similar symptomsIn many casessuch animals are not the typicalwell characterized research modelsbut rather non traditional speciesOne example of this situation is the ferret model of influenzaA major drawback of non traditional models is that their immune systems cannot be adequately investigated due to the lack of reagentsnotably monoclonal antibodiesused for characterizing subsets of immune cells and the cytokines they produceThe production of such antibodies through traditional methods is laborioustime consumingand expensiveIn Phase I of this projectwe will use the EAP Immunization System to produce needed monoclonal antibodies for characterizing immune cells of the ferretThe EAP System uses smalleasily producedsynthetic peptides for the induction and preliminary characterization of new antibodiesThis methodology has been used by Silver Lake Research to produce hundreds of monoclonal antibodies for targets that were previously inaccessibleAt the successful conclusion of this Phase I projectnew reagents will be available to significantly enhance existing research capabilities for influenzaone of the most common infections worldwide