Infecting Volunteers with Dengue Virus Shows Experimental Drug’s Promise

October 26, 2023

(Science) – Asking people to get injected with a debilitating virus, even a weakened version of it, is a tall order—but it’s also a powerful and fast way to test an experimental antiviral in a small study. So Anna Durbin, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health, recently recruited 31 volunteers, who received cash payments to see whether a compound developed by Johnson & Johnson (J&J) could become the first drug to prevent infections from dengue virus, a mosquito-borne pathogen that causes what’s sometimes called break-bone fever. (Read More)