Houston Methodist Joins $49M National Effort to Develop Vaccines Against Herpesviruses
Houston Methodist researchers are part of a national consortium that has received up to $49 million from the U.S. Government’s Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H) to advance vaccines targeting two common and destructive herpesvirus strains that affect a majority of Americans. The project, named America’s SHIELD (Strategic Herpesvirus Immune Evasion and Latency Defense), aims to prevent and treat infections from Epstein-Barr virus and human cytomegalovirus—viruses linked to cancer, autoimmune disease, and birth defects.
Led by co-principal investigator Dr. Jimmy D. Gollihar, head of the Antibody Discovery and Accelerated Protein Therapeutics (ADAPT) laboratory at Houston Methodist, and Dr. Erica Ollmann Saphire, president and CEO of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, the consortium brings together scientists from 19 U.S. laboratories. Gollihar’s ADAPT lab, a center for synthetic biology and protein engineering, will use AI and machine learning to design viral antigens for mRNA vaccines, targeting multiple infection stages including cell-to-cell spread and immune evasion.
“A critical and innovative aspect to our strategy is targeting antigens essential to distinct stages of viral infection—beyond initial entry—to also include cell-to-cell spread, immune evasion, and reactivation stages linked to cancer and other complications,” Gollihar said.
Houston Methodist researchers Dr. John P. Cooke and Dr. Francesca Taraballi will contribute to the vaccine design and delivery, utilizing Houston Methodist Research Institute’s RNA Core and nanotechnology platforms to create mRNA vaccines encapsulated in lipid nanoparticles for testing. Cooke, the medical director of the Center for RNA Therapeutics, and Taraballi, director of the Center for Musculoskeletal Regeneration, will lead these efforts under stringent FDA protocols.
This project, supported by ARPA-H’s APECx (Antigens Predicted for Broad Viral Efficacy through Computational Experimentation) program, addresses significant public health concerns. Epstein-Barr virus is associated with several cancers and multiple sclerosis, while cytomegalovirus is a leading cause of congenital birth defects. This research is expected to generate a toolkit that could not only speed herpesvirus vaccine development but also improve responses to other viral threats, advancing U.S. preparedness for future pandemics.
