Mass
High Tech: Aphios wins
substantial NIH grant to study potential HIV therapies
03/23/2004
10:36 AM: Aphios Corp.
of Woburn has been awarded a Small Business Innovative Research
(SBIR) Advanced Technology Phase I grant worth nearly $900,000
from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases,
National Institutes of Health.
The two-year
grant calls for Aphios to develop novel anti-HIV therapeutics
from its unique library of marine microorganisms.
Aphios has established
a library of diverse marine microorganisms and marine molecule
fractions from normal to extremophilic environments for
the rapid discovery and development of novel anti-infectives
(HIV, influenza, smallpox, bacterial, MDR).
According to
Aphios, it has screened more than 10,000 partially-purified
marine molecule fractions (more than 1 million molecular
entities) from its marine microorganism library for activity
against HIV-1 in cytoprotection and cytotoxicity assays
and has identified more than 300 hits that are effective
against HIV-1.
Founded in 1993,
Aphios is a biopharmaceutical company that is developing
enhanced natural therapeutics for health maintenance and
the treatment of human diseases with a focus on infectious
diseases, oncology and quality-of-life medicines.
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