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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · 1h

Follow up publication describing immunogenicity and efficacy in NHPs of historical and contemporary H5N1 vaccine compositions against challenge with contemporary cattle virus isolate. What we concluded in mice did not translate to NHPs. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · 8d

bsky.app/profile/jess...

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Feb 20

New paper out describing how we developed a 2-antigen repRNA vaccine for #CCHF in our continuing collaboration with NIAID (David Hawman and Heinz Feldmann). www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · 8d

bsky.app/profile/jess...

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Dec 20

Another update on our #CCHF vaccine that is marching towards phase I clinical trial. Here we report on the durability of protection in a mouse model of CCHFV infection. Excellent work from our colleagues at RML/NIAID🧪 www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Replicating RNA vaccine confers durable immunity against Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus challenge in mice - npj Vaccines

npj Vaccines - Replicating RNA vaccine confers durable immunity against Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever virus challenge in mice

www.nature.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · 8d

Some related posts below. bsky.app/profile/jess...

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Apr 15

Just published! Here we report immunogenicity and efficacy of our replicon RNA vaccine against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in a cynomolgus macaque model of #CCHFV infection. Stay tuned as we advance this candidate in clinical trials.

www.thelancet.com/journals/ebi...

A replicating RNA vaccine confers protection against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in cynomolgus macaques

Our data demonstrate that our repNP vaccine and NP-specific antibody can protect against CCHFV in non-human primates.

www.thelancet.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · 8d

Happy to announce that we have initiated a phase I clinical trial to evaluate safety and immunogenicity of our LION/repRNA vaccine against #CCHF. This is the culmination of a great partnership with NIAID, UTMB, and our federal sponsors. More to come! www.prnewswire.com/news-release...

FDA Greenlights HDT Bio's First-in-Class HDT-321 for the Prevention of Deadly Tick-Borne Disease

/PRNewswire/ -- HDT Bio Corporation, a U.S.-based clinical-stage biotechnology company advancing immune-enhancing solutions for global health, biodefense, and...

www.prnewswire.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Aug 8

Seems heads are already rolling.

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Aug 6

Even our project, which directly addressed the tolerability and upper respiratory tract immunity gaps highlighted by RFK Jr, was impacted by this decision. They clearly didn’t review the 22 contracts/grants and the data already generated under taxpayer investment. We are 3 yrs into our program…

Helen Branswell 🇨🇦 @helenbranswell.bsky.social · Aug 5

Pandemic preparedness in the US has been leveled a crippling blow with the cancellation of multiple #BARDA contracts to help develop mRNA vaccines. No other vaccine platform produces vaccine so quickly; without mRNA, Americans will have a long wait for pandemic vax. www.statnews.com/2025/08/05/m...

Health secretary RFK Jr. shuts door on U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research

Vaccine experts and people steeped in pandemic preparedness expressed horror at the news that RFK Jr. has shut the door in U.S. investment in mRNA vaccine research.

www.statnews.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jul 11

Excited to meet the D2R community!

D2R | DNA to RNA @d2rmcgill.bsky.social · Jul 10

🧬 Register for D2R’s next hybrid seminar: Industry Insights with @jesseerasmus.bsky.social from HDT Bio

📅 Date: July 16th
🕰 Time: 1:00 - 2:00 PM
📍 Location: Zoom & in person

🔗 Register now: buff.ly/AayfR7c
#RNA #Biotechnology

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jul 2

Without safety concern but still higher reactogenicity across the board compared to the licensed comparator. Wish there was a way to improve efficacy while retaining the favorable safety profile of the licensed comparator 🤔

Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jul 1

Congrats! Super cool finding. Now I want to put gH-UL116-UL141 into our RNA platform and compare to all the other permutations of structural (and now “nonstructural”) antigen candidates.

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jun 19

🧪 New paper from our team at HDT Bio highlighting that combo repRNA vaccines can lead to excessive innate activation that ultimately inhibits vaccine effectiveness in NHPs. Use of repRNA formulations with restricted biodistribution can alleviate systemic innate response and restore effectiveness.

Antigen-dependent interplay of formulation, systemic innate responses, and antibody responses to multi-component replicon RNA vaccination

Lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) are a modular, non-viral nucleic acid delivery system. Here, Eygeris and colleagues report that addition of saponin molecules, such as quillaic acid, to LNP formulations can...

www.cell.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jun 19

No I haven’t. I’ll check it out!

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Reposted by Jesse Erasmus

Jason McLellan @mclellanlab.bsky.social · Jun 18

Our latest preprint is now available doi.org/10.1101/2025...! Led by my postdoc, Luqiang Guo @luqiang.bsky.social, we determined a ~2.4 A resolution structure of the hantavirus glycoprotein tetramer on the surface of VLPs. Also determined structures of dimers of tetramers and Fab-bound tetramers.

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jun 13

I didn’t realize you could filter the posts of who you follow! The paper feed is just what I was looking for.

Alex Crits-Christoph @acritschristoph.bsky.social · Jun 13

There is so, so much good science being shared and discussed on bsky right now. The news of its demise is quite backwards. If you are having trouble finding it among all of the very important political news, use the papersky feed that filters posts you follow to just papers:
bsky.app/profile/pape...

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Jun 13

Shook Nelson Mandela’s hand when I was 10 years old at some kind of gathering in a community park. Just remember him getting off a helicopter and walking through a crowd shaking hands, including mine.

R.L. Stine Cold Steve Austin @bolt451.bsky.social · Jun 13

Right folks. Feeling rather down at the moment so bringing back an oldie

Please Quote this with your most minor celebrity interaction

Reposted by Jesse Erasmus

Jeremy Berg @jeremymberg.bsky.social · Jun 6

Outstanding op-ed from Carole LaBonne

Universities and the government: Which needs the other more?

College-based research labs are the workhorses of national progress and prosperity.

wapo.st/3ZR1vFm

1/n

wapo.st

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 21

Nothing published on this yet. But we are working on it!

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 6

Summary:

1) LION/repRNA (don’t confuse with LNP/mRNA) can indeed confer protection on par with the VSV platform (at least in guinea pigs) after one shot.

2) LION & VSV elicited similar IgG titers but with a unique effector profile. LION induced higher ADCP & ADNP activity but lower ADCD. (2/2)

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 6

Collab btwn NIAID (Dr. Andrea Marzi’s lab) and HDT Bio just published! 🧪

Filovirus gold-standard VSV vax platform compared to LION/repRNA (each encoding same antigen seq) for ability to provide single-dose protection in guinea pigs against Sudan virus challenge 🧵(1/2) www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Single-dose replicon RNA Sudan virus vaccine uniformly protects female guinea pigs from disease - Nature Communications

Sudan virus (SUDV) outbreaks in Uganda created public health concerns due to a lack of approved vaccines. In this study, the authors develop a repRNA SUDV vaccine and demonstrate full protection of a ...

www.nature.com

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 4

Mice were protected from death and viremia (panels d and e) in the inactivated vaccine group but not from morbidity (panels b and c), suggesting some nuance in the quality of immune response between authentic and inactivated versions. Lots of potential explanations out there.

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 4

In fig 5 of the 🔗 paper, I compared the durability of protective immunity elicited by same doses of the exact same virus/vaccine (non replicating). One was inactivated with formalin (open circles); the other was not (closed circles). Inactivation killed durability. www.nature.com/articles/nm....

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 4

I noticed this statement from NIH regarding durability of the inactivated approach. I didn’t see any durability data in the published studies of this candidate. Anyone aware of durability studies performed using inactivated virus platforms? I did one experiment in grad school (in thread below).

STAT did receive a comment —
"attributable to the NIH" - that offered a defense of the funding decision. It signaled, however, a lack of clarity about what the project is aiming to achieve, saying vaccines made ising the platform "could provide broad, long-lasting protection against all influenza viral pathogens, including influenza and coronaviruses, with the added potential to block transmission and stop outbreaks at the source." Coronaviruses are not "influenza viral pathogens."

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · May 1

Don’t get me wrong, I’m appalled by what this administration is doing to science. But I think there is something else going on here. Whatever happened will undoubtedly get politicized though.

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Jesse Erasmus @jesseerasmus.bsky.social · Apr 15

Just published! Here we report immunogenicity and efficacy of our replicon RNA vaccine against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in a cynomolgus macaque model of #CCHFV infection. Stay tuned as we advance this candidate in clinical trials.

www.thelancet.com/journals/ebi...

A replicating RNA vaccine confers protection against Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever in cynomolgus macaques

Our data demonstrate that our repNP vaccine and NP-specific antibody can protect against CCHFV in non-human primates.

www.thelancet.com

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Reposted by Jesse Erasmus

Kelton Minor @keltonminor.bsky.social · Mar 18

There are days in life that shake you.

I’m shattered 💔 to share that I just found out that the US Government terminated my 2024 NIH Director’s Early Independence Award (~$2 million), threatening my long-promised assistant professor job at Columbia University
& academic career... 1/🧵

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