{"id":24546,"date":"2016-04-11T20:17:04","date_gmt":"2016-04-12T03:17:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/darpa-wants-shape-shifting-vaccines-that-evolve-with-viruses"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:02:44","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:02:44","slug":"darpa-wants-shape-shifting-vaccines-that-evolve-with-viruses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2016\/04\/darpa-wants-shape-shifting-vaccines-that-evolve-with-viruses","title":{"rendered":"DARPA wants \u2018shape-shifting\u2019 vaccines that evolve with viruses"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a><\/p>\n

DARPA taking on the designer viruses and resistant fighting viruses that we hate. Who knows; they may finally find the fountain of youth in the process.<\/p>\n

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Vaccines are great, but they\u2019re no match for most viruses in play at any given time. This is due largely in part to the ever-changing nature of viruses and the expense and difficulty in developing new vaccines to target them. DARPA<\/a> wants that reality to change, citing the numerous concerning viruses, past and present, that affect humanity. Under the \u201cINTERCEPT\u201d program, DARPA seeks \u201cshape-shifting\u201d vaccines that adapt to kill off viruses as they evolve.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest virus scares at the moment is the zika virus, but ebola was just recently a big issue and other viruses, including influenza and dengue, are a continuous problem. Once someone is infected, the virus is able to \u201cmutate and morph as they reproduce inside their hosts,\u201d says DARPA, making any vaccines quickly obsolete. If the agency\u2019s new INTERfering and Co-Evolving Prevention and Therapy (INTERCEPT) program proves successful, though, things will change in a big way.<\/p>\n

Under the program, DARPA seeks a solution that uses something called TIPs \u2014 Therapeutic Interfering Particles \u2014 which are described as small entities similar to viruses that are made in labs. TIPs are essentially genetic material packed within a protein shell, something that mimic the way a virus is structured. Because of their similarities, TIPs can enter cells like viruses but don\u2019t proceeded to hijack that cell as viruses do.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DARPA taking on the designer viruses and resistant fighting viruses that we hate. Who knows; they may finally find the fountain of youth in the process. Vaccines are great, but they\u2019re no match for most viruses in play at any given time. This is due largely in part to the ever-changing nature of viruses and [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":395,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,412,269,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24546","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-genetics","category-life-extension","category-particle-physics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24546","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/395"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24546"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24546\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":67733,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24546\/revisions\/67733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24546"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24546"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24546"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}