Vaccine Genome Researchers Report 99.7% Colinear Identity Between a U.S. Civil War Era Smallpox Vaccine and Horsepox Virus - Seite 3

The recent report is the latest in a series from a team composed by Dr. Esparza, Clarissa R Damaso, PhD at the Carlos Chagas Filho Biophisics Institute of the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and Andreas Nitsche, Ph.D. at the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin, Germany. They have previously reported⁷ that the core viral sequence of a 1902 U.S. smallpox vaccine manufactured by Mulford, a vaccine manufacturer subsequently acquired by Merck, was closely related to the Mongolian horsepox MNR-76 on which TNX-801 is based. The latest report shows that the circa 1860 VK05 vaccine also contains a high degree of colinear identity through the ends of the viruses, including regions where all previously characterized smallpox vaccines including Mulford 1902 contained deletions of approximately 11 kB on the left side and 6 kB on the right side.

Dr. Lederman continued, “Smallpox was eradicated using single-dose live replicating vaccines that induce durable T cell immunity, prevent serious illness after infection and block forward transmission. Our hope and our goal is to produce vaccines that will provide long term immunity with a single dose using a proven technology that can be readily scaled up for manufacturing and that does not require a costly and cumbersome cold chain for distribution and storage.”

About TNX-801*
TNX-801 is a live virus vaccine based on synthesized horsepox^3,4. Horsepox and vaccinia are closely related orthopoxviruses that are believed to share a common ancestor. Molecular analysis suggests that TNX-801 has relatively “complete” left and right inverted terminal repeats (ITRs) while different vaccinia isolates have a variety of deletions adjacent to the left and right ITRs including a characteristic approximately 11 kB deletion on the left side and an approximately 6 kB deletion on the right side. Therefore, TNX-801 has additional genes, relative to vaccinia vaccines, that may play roles in host immune interactions and one or more of such proteins may serve as antigens for protective immunity. Molecular analysis also shows that horsepox is closer than modern vaccines in DNA sequence to the vaccine discovered and disseminated by Dr. Edward Jenner^3,4,5,7,8. The small plaque size in culture of TNX-801 appears identical to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control publication of the natural isolate¹⁰. Relative to vaccinia, horsepox has substantially decreased virulence in mice³. Tonix’s TNX-801 vaccine candidate is administered percutaneously using a two-pronged, or “bifurcated” needle. The major cutaneous reaction or “take” to vaccinia vaccine was described by Dr. Edward Jenner in 1796 and has been used since then as a biomarker for protective immunity to smallpox, including in the World Health Organization’s (WHO) accelerated smallpox eradication program that successfully eradicated smallpox in the 1960’s. The “take” is a measure of functional T cell immunity validated by the eradication of smallpox, a respiratory-transmitted disease caused by variola. Tonix’s proprietary horsepox vector is believed to be more closely related to Jenner’s vaccinia vaccine than modern vaccinia vaccines, which appear to have evolved by deletions and mutations to a phenotype of larger plaque size in tissue culture and greater virulence in mice. TNX-801 vaccinated macaques showed no overt clinical signs after monkeypox challenge¹¹.