Academic Literature Supporting Brilacidin’s Vaccine Potential Against COVID-19
Vaccines containing defensins as adjuvants have been shown, both in vivo and in vitro, to activate the primary innate antiviral immune response and mediate other immunomodulatory activities against a number of viruses, including coronaviruses, such as MERS-CoV.
Defensins and their mimetics, like Brilacidin, thus represent a promising therapeutic avenue as vaccines to target COVID-19, the deadly respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which has emerged as a worldwide pandemic.
Supported by scientific research, Brilacidin is one of the few drugs targeting COVID-19 that has been tested in human trials for other clinical indications, providing an established safety and efficacy profile, thereby potentially enabling it to rapidly help address the emerging worldwide coronavirus crisis, developed both as an intravenous medicine and as a vaccine.
“In addition to their antibacterial and antiviral activity, defensins are one of the strongest central and peripheral defenders against pathogen infection, particularly in linking innate and adaptive immunity against pathogen infection…”
Source: Park MS, et al. “Towards the Application of Human Defensins at Antivirals.” Biomol Ther(Seoul). 2018 May 1;26(3):242-254. doi: 10.4062/biomolther.2017.172.
Source: Kim, J, et al. “Human β-defensin 2 Plays a Regulatory Role in Innate Antiviral Immunity and Is Capable of Potentiating the Induction of Antigen-Specific Immunity.” Virol J. 2018; 15: 124. Published online 2018 Aug 8. doi: 10.1186/s12985-018-1035-2
Source: Biragyn, A. “Defensins—Non-Antibiotic Use for Vaccine Development.” Current Protein and Peptide Science, Volume 6, Number 1, 2005, pp. 53-60(8).