Manassas bio research supplier wins $5.5M in federal grants

Manassas-based biological materials management nonprofit American Type Culture Collection (ATCC) announced Tuesday that it won three Defense Threat Reduction Agency grants valued at more than $5.5 million to identify new therapeutic approaches to viruses.

“ATCC is committed to supporting this global health initiative by providing the novel scientific research and development solutions needed to address these high-morbidity and mortality infectious disease outcomes,” ATCC Chairman and CEO Dr. Raymond H. Cypess said in a statement. “Through our new partnership with DTRA, we now have the opportunity to focus on the development of novel machine learning and artificial intelligence models for countermeasure identification that may lead to better vaccine and therapeutic solutions, which are needed to save lives.”

ATCC will work to define new targets for therapeutics, evaluate new and/or Food and Drug Administration-approved candidates for antiviral and anti-inflammatory activities and define infection-associated biomarkers. The information gained will be used to develop AI models of disease and therapeutic effectiveness.

Promising therapies will be tested with organoid models (organ-on-a-chip) and could be a step in the one-drug-many-bugs approach to antiviral product development.

Aarthi Narayanan, ATCC’s director of translational research and technology transfer, will lead the research.

ATCC develops and supplies authenticated cells lines and microorganisms, advanced model systems and custom solutions, supporting research in basic science, drug discovery, translational medicine and public health.