Infectious
Disease

Aragen experts design and manage infectious disease programs that maximize a drug candidate’s probability of success. Our team’s extensive experience results in a thorough understanding of infectious disease modeling, allowing clients to creatively test compound activity, design new delivery mechanisms, and explore novel vaccine strategies for a variety of infectious diseases.

Infectious Disease Models

• Clostridium difficile-associated diarrhoea model in hamsters and mice
• Mouse cytomegalovirus (mCMV)
• Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) in mice and cotton rats
• Immunogenicity studies to evaluate vaccine candidates
• Mouse coronavirus MV-A59
• Citrobacter-induced colitis in mice

Pseudovirus System for SARS-CoV-2

The vesicular stomatitis virus (VSV)-based pseudovirus system incorporating the Spike protein from SARS-CoV-2 is a useful tool for the analysis of serum from vaccine studies, monoclonal antibodies or therapeutics that impact the entry of SARS-CoV-2 into cells. In this system the VSV genome has been modified to eliminate the expression of its attachment/fusion protein (G protein). The attachment/fusion proteins from heterologous viruses can then be expressed from a plasmid during an infection with the modified VSV. The emerging virus particles contain a functional SARS-CoV-2 Spike protein on the surface of the VSV. This system can be quickly updated with emerging original SARS-COV-2 as well as the variants on the Spike protein. Experts in virology perform these assays in BSL2 laboratories.