Throughout January we will be highlighting Emory’s and OTT’s work in infectious disease and vaccines. The second technology we are highlighting is Tyzeka®a drug to address Hepatitis B.
The Hepatitis B virus inflames the liver and is one of the top ten killers worldwide. About 350 million people, about 5 percent of the world’s population, are chronic carriers, and thousands die each year from complications of chronic hepatitis B virus (HBV) infections, such as cirrhosis or liver cancer. Thankfully deaths are on the decline due to better treatment options including a vaccination. However for HBV patients who show signs of liver damage, are pregnant, or who have HIV as well, the medications normally used to treat HBV might do more harm than good. In fact, for someone co-infected with HIV, treatment with other HBV drugs could result in resistant HIV.
Emory researcher, Raymond Schinazi, invented telbivudine (to help this group of patients that couldn’t be treated with existing HBV treatment options. Telbivudine is a synthetic analogue of the thymidine nucleoside, one of the major building blocks of DNA. Telbivudine (marketed as Tyzeka®) decreases the amount of HBV in the body and is the only FDA-approved hepatitis B drug that is selectively active against HBV. Although it does not cure HBV, it may prevent complications. HBV can be passed from person to person through contact with blood or bodily fluids, from mothers to their infants, or by sharing infected needles, similar to HIV. Tyzeka® provides a new treatment option and, more importantly, hope to many people living with chronic hepatitis B.
View the original full feature on our website here.
The ground breaking work begins in the Division of Infectious Disease and the Emory Vaccine Center.
-
The Division of Infectious Disease has 59 faculty and 13 fellows, 5 administrators, and 89 research staff. There are 14 Professors, 7 Associate Professors, 34 Assistant Professors, and 4 Senior Associates or Instructors. The Division is proud of its outstanding accomplishments in a broad spectrum of research, including basic, translational, clinical, and epidemiologic sciences. The Division had more than $30 million in research funding in fiscal year 2013. (For more information: http://medicine.emory.edu/divisions/infectious_diseases/.)
-
The Emory Vaccine Center is an epicenter of academic research and development of vaccines for both chronic and infectious diseases. With more than 250 faculty members and staff, it is the largest and most comprehensive academic vaccine research center in the world. The Center is making fundamental advances in immunology, virology, and vaccine research to search for life saving cures against the world’s most threatening diseases plaguing millions of individuals around the globe. (For more information: http://www.vaccines.emory.edu/.)