WRAIR’s Emerging Infectious Diseases Branch is able to leverage the Institute’s full range of product development capabilities to advance candidate vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics.
WRAIR’s unique, vast infrastructure includes basic science laboratories, pre-clinical testing amenities, pilot-scale manufacturing facilities and a global network of clinical trials sites that enable WRAIR to rapidly focus resources on emerging infectious disease threats. These resources allow WRAIR to develop its own products and work with partners in academia and industry around the world to advance the very best products.
- WRAIR helped develop or test nearly 50% of the FDA-approved vaccines commonly used today.
- In 2019, WRAIR conducted a clinical trial for the first-in-human vaccine against MERS-CoV, a genetic cousin of SARS-CoV-2.
- Amidst the 2015-2016 Zika pandemic, WRAIR advanced a vaccine to clinical trials in humans in just nine months.