NIH-funded clinical trial will evaluate new dengue therapeutic

NIH/National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases

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A creative layout featuring a photo of an Aedes mosquito, which can transmit the dengue virus, and cryoelectron microscopy renderings of mature dengue virus particles. Groups of dengue virus particles (beige) captured through transmission electron microscopy (courtesy CDC) appear faintly in the outer background.

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Credit: NIAID

A clinical trial supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is testing an experimental treatment designed to help people suffering the effects of dengue, a mosquito-borne viral disease. The study is supported by NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), and will involve exposing adult volunteers to a weakened strain of dengue virus that causes a mild form of the disease and administering an investigational therapeutic at various doses to assess its safety and ability to lessen symptoms.  

Dengue is transmitted via infected Aedes mosquitoes and sickens as many as 400 million people each year, primarily in tropical and subtropical parts of the world, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2024, dengue cases surged to record levels in the Americas with local U.S. transmission reported in Arizona, California, Florida, Hawaii, and Texas. Dengue is endemic in Puerto Rico, which reported nearly 1,500 cases last year. Most people with dengue do not develop symptoms, but those who do commonly experience severe headache and body aches, nausea and vomiting, fever and rash. One in 20 people who get sick with dengue progress to severe illness, which may lead to shock, internal bleeding, and death. There is currently no Food and Drug Administration-approved treatment for dengue. 

“When caring for a patient who is critically ill with dengue, healthcare providers have few options other than providing supportive care,” said NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo, M.D., M.P.H. “We must find safe and effective therapeutics to provide much-needed relief to people suffering from dengue.”

The new clinical trial will test the ability of AV-1, an investigational human monoclonal antibody therapeutic developed by AbViro (Bethesda, Maryland), to mitigate clinical symptoms when administered before and after dengue virus infection. The results of a previously completed NIAID-supported Phase 1 trial indicated that AV-1 is safe in humans, providing the basis for the new clinical trial to test its safety and efficacy. 

The Phase 2 clinical trial will enroll at least 84 healthy adult volunteers at two sites: the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Immunization Research in Baltimore, and the University of Vermont Vaccine Testing Center in Burlington. Following an initial screening and physical examination, volunteers will be randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group will receive AV-1 one day prior to being challenged with a mild strain of dengue virus, and the other will receive AV-1 four days after being challenged with the dengue virus. Each group will be further subdivided to receive 100 mg, 300 mg, or 900 mg of AV-1, delivered in a 60-minute intravenous infusion. For each of the three dosage levels, 12 participants will receive the investigational monoclonal antibody, and two will receive a placebo.

Before or after AV-1 dosing, each volunteer will receive an injection of attenuated (weakened) dengue virus. In earlier studies using this challenge virus, most volunteers developed a rash, and some had other mild dengue symptoms, such as joint and muscle pain or headache. None of the volunteers developed dengue fever or severe dengue. 

Volunteers will participate in regular follow-up visits with study staff for at least 155 days to carefully monitor the effects of the investigational monoclonal antibody. Through physical exams, diary cards and blood samples, researchers will document how the volunteers’ immune systems respond to the dengue virus challenge, how quickly the virus vanishes from their bloodstream and any symptoms they may experience. The researchers will use this information to determine how AV-1 affects the volunteers’ ability to recover from dengue compared to placebo and to determine the dosages at which AV-1 may be effective.

If AV-1 shows promising results in this clinical trial, researchers may pursue further clinical evaluations of its safety and efficacy against dengue virus. For more information about the study, visit ClinicalTrials.gov and search the identifier NCT06799741.

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NIAID conducts and supports research—at NIH, throughout the United States, and worldwide—to study the causes of infectious and immune-mediated diseases, and to develop better means of preventing, diagnosing and treating these illnesses. News releases, fact sheets and other NIAID-related materials are available on the NIAID website. 

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH): NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit https://www.nih.gov/. 

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Tigers in the neighborhood: How India makes room for both tigers and people

India's wild tiger population is rising despite habitat pressure. This success stems from ecological restoration, economic initiatives, political stability, and cultural reverence for tigers, fostering coexistence between humans and predators.

Aarhus University

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Tigers now share space with nearly 60 million people in India. A camera trap photograph of tiger in the outskirts of the city of Bhopal in India. 

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Credit: Yashpal Rathore

In India, tigers haven’t just survived − they’ve made a comeback. Despite a growing population and increasing pressure on their habitats, the number of wild tigers is rising. The reason? A combination of ecological restoration, economic initiatives, and political stability. And just as important: a deeply rooted reverence for tigers that has fostered a culture where humans and predators can coexist.

How do you protect an endangered species when that species is a tiger − a predator that also poses a threat to humans? India has found a way by combining protected reserves with areas where tigers and people share space. The result? A 30% increase in the tiger population over the past two decades.

According to a new study published in Science, India is now home to approximately 3,700 tigers, accounting for 75% of the world’s wild tiger population. This demonstrates that even in the world’s most populous country, it is possible to protect large carnivores.

A Plan B for Tigers

India’s tiger conservation strategy combines two approaches: some areas are strictly protected reserves, while others are multi-use landscapes where tigers and people share space. And this isn’t just for the benefit of the tigers.

“The advantage of combining these two methods is that reserves act as a source of tigers for surrounding areas. And if coexistence no longer works, the reserves provide a fallback option − ensuring that tigers are not at risk of extinction,” explains Ninad Mungi, assistant professor at Aarhus University and co-author of the study (see fact box).

Today, 45% of India’s tiger-occupied landscapes are shared with around 60 million people.

What Makes Coexistence Possible?

According to researchers, human population density alone is not what determines whether tigers can thrive – it’s people’s lifestyles, economic conditions, and cultural attitudes that shape their willingness to share space with large carnivores.

In relatively prosperous regions where ecotourism and government compensation schemes generate income, tolerance for tigers is much higher.

In fact, for some Indian farmers, losing cattle to a tiger does not essentially spell disaster. Farmers who keep their livestock in barns and enclosures are rarely affected by tigers. However, when cattle are released to graze in tiger-inhabited areas, and if a tiger eats it, the farmer receives financial compensation from the government – turning a loss into a gain.

The study shows that tiger populations are growing fastest in areas that:

• Are close to tiger reserves
• Have abundant prey and suitable habitats
• Have relatively low human population density
• Enjoy moderate economic prosperity

Poverty and Armed Conflicts Also Threaten Tigers

However, tiger populations remain low in rural areas with extreme poverty, where many people rely on forests for food, firewood, and other resources.

“In the past, foraging in the forest was sustainable. But now, with more people and less space for tigers, conflicts are increasing,” explains Ninad Mungi.

Tigers are also scarce in regions affected by armed conflict.

“Our study shows that nearly half of the areas where tigers have disappeared are in districts affected by the Naxal conflict,” says Ninad Mungi. When effective governance is weakened by conflict, the risk of poaching and habitat destruction increases – posing a major challenge for tiger conservation.

Tigers Rarely Attack Humans

Although the idea of having tigers nearby might seem alarming, attacks on humans are rare. On average, around 100 people are killed by tigers each year in India.

And if the worst happens, there is a safety net:

“If a person is killed by a tiger, their family receives financial compensation from the government,” explains Ninad Mungi.

When a tiger develops a habit of attacking humans, managers capture it and relocate it to a reserve or a zoo. 

Can the World Learn from India?

India’s model could provide valuable insights far beyond its borders. In Europe, many countries are struggling with wolves attacking livestock, and India’s experience may inspire new approaches that protect both wildlife and farmers’ livelihoods.

According to Ninad Mungi, India and Europe share some similarities when it comes to large carnivore conservation.

"In both India and Europe, protected areas are small − only 200-300 km² − and only a small fraction is strictly off-limits to humans. The debate in Europe and North America has been whether to focus solely on protected areas reserved for wildlife. It is critical to have such inviolate areas, where large carnivores are insulated from any human control. But a significant gain can be achieved by going an extra mile and fostering a culture of coexistence beyond protected areas. India offers an alternative by integrating shared landscapes," he says.

"There are, of course, cultural challenges, but culture can change over time. India’s experience proves that large predators can survive in a modern world – if we are willing to think creatively and find a balance between protection and coexistence."

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FACT BOX

The study Tiger recovery amid people and poverty was conducted by a group of researchers from the Wildlife Institute of India, the National Tiger Conservation Authority in New Delhi, and the Center for Ecological Dynamics in a Novel Biosphere at Aarhus University.

Tigers in the outskirts of the city of Bhopal in India. The map shows the status of tiger occupancy in India from 2006 to 2018.

Credit

Photo: Y.V. Jhala, Map: Jhala et al. 2025 Science

'Huli Vesha’, the tiger dance, is performed to pay tribute to the hindu Goddess Durga, who rides a tiger.

Tiger populations remain low in rural areas with extreme poverty, where many people rely on forests for food, firewood, and other resources. Here, a couple of women collect fruit from the mahua  tree (also known as the Indian Butter Tree)

Credit

Yashpal Rathore

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Journal

Science

DOI

10.1126/science.adk4827 

Article Title

Tiger recovery amid people and poverty

Article Publication Date

31-Jan-2025

 

How does the atmosphere affect ocean weather?

New research reveals the surprising ways atmospheric winds influence ocean eddies, shaping the ocean’s weather patterns in more complex ways than previously believed.

University of Rochester

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The earth’s prevailing winds were previously thought to slow down ocean weather patterns like eddies and strain, but new research shows that prevailing winds can energize ocean weather patterns if their spin is aligned.

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Credit: University of Rochester illustration / Shikhar Rai

Much like the windy weather patterns that affect the Earth’s surface, our planet’s oceans experience their own distinct weather patterns. These weather patterns, known as eddies, are circular currents of water that are typically about 100 kilometers wide.

A new study of satellite imagery and high-resolution climate model data by scientists at the University of Rochester upends previous assumptions and provides insight about how those surface and ocean weather patterns interact. Scientists formerly believed atmospheric wind had a damping effect, slowing the eddies, but the study, published in Nature Communications, offers a new theory that better explains the complexities of how atmospheric wind affects eddies.

“It’s actually more interesting than what people had previously thought,” says Hussein Aluie, a professor in the Department of Mechanical Engineering and the Department of Mathematics and senior scientist at the University’s Laboratory for Laser Energetics “There’s a marked asymmetry in how the wind affects these motions, and it depends on the direction they spin.”

Aluie says that prevailing winds that move longitudinally across the globe, such as the westerlies and trade winds, will slow the eddies when they move in the opposite direction but energize them if their spin is aligned.

In between the swirling eddies are intricate tangles of ocean weather patterns known as strain. While strain patterns aren’t as easily distinguished by the naked eye, Aluie says they account for about half of the ocean’s kinetic energy and are damped or energized by wind in similar ways as eddies.

“The new energy pathways between the atmosphere and the ocean that we discovered can help design better ocean observation systems and improve climate models,” says Shikhar Rai ’23 PhD (mechanical engineering), first author of the study and a postdoctoral investigator at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. In addition to improving climate modeling, being able to better predict the ocean’s weather patterns could have practical applications for fisheries and help better direct commercial ships where to go.

The study was supported by the National Science Foundation, NASA, the Department of Energy, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, focused largely on the mechanical interactions between the atmosphere and the ocean. In future studies, Aluie plans to investigate the role eddies play in transporting energy between the oceans and atmosphere.

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-56310-1 

Article Title

Atmospheric wind energization of ocean weather

Article Publication Date

30-Jan-2025

 

Robots get smarter to work in sewers

Estonian Research Council

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1.-2. Working in sewers presents a myriad of technological challenges. There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such a featureless, harsh environments.

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Credit: PIPEON, Simon Tait, University of Sheffield & TalTech

The ambitious project PIPEON* will develop new robotic and AI-based technologies for mapping, monitoring, and maintaining Europe’s sewer networks using autonomous “thinking” robots and AI-based modelling and analysis tools.

The development and application of such new technologies would have major societal, environmental and economic impact. Instead of repairing in-sewer defects and removing blockages after streets and homes have been flooded with sewage, defects can be quickly identified and repaired and blockages removed when they are still small. Early, preventative repair and maintenance actions will limit the frequency and volume of sewage spills from sewer overflows into rivers, a key target of the new Urban Wastewater Treatment Directive, which has been recently approved by the European Commission.

Lots of challenges

The project leader, Professor Maarja Kruusmaa at TalTech, explained that although repair and cleaning are very practical problems, working in sewer environments means that their solution first requires the achievement of fundamentally new research results. "Robots are mostly used to perform dirty, tedious and dangerous work and are sent to hard-to-reach places instead of people", says Kruusmaa, adding: "but few people have remembered that one of the most complex, dangerous and hard-to-reach environments in the world is right here under our feet when we walk home from work every day". Working in sewers presents a myriad of technological challenges. "There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such a featureless, harsh environments.” Thus, we need to develop new types of locomotion mechanisms so that robots are able to move even in wastewater, containing solids and fats. New control approaches so that robots can navigate in darkness in pipes with few landmarks, physically restricted by ever changing pipe directions and sizes.  Sewer robots need to be smart so that they can survive for days on their own. Underground, there are usually no communication options or GPS signals and there are no precise maps of sewer networks "We will use machine learning algorithms to navigate underground as well as to identify potential defects. But robots are small, and we cannot use unlimited computing power, as is the case, for example, with large language models like ChatGPT. We need to make sure that the robot's own small on-board computer is able to process, learn and decide, and this requires a completely different type of artificial intelligence," Kruusmaa explains.

12 European partners are involved in the project

The project received funding from the highly competitive European Framework Programme on Robotics and Artificial Intelligence. Kruusmaa commented that "We managed to convince the European Commission that, on the one hand, the project has a very big impact on the environment, the economy and society, and that on the other hand, we are the best team." The team, led by TalTech, is multi-disciplinary and has 12 partners, including the Norwegian University of Science and Technology, the University of Sheffield, and several European innovative technology companies, such as an Italian start-up Herobots who are developing novel actuation mechanisms, and also several water utilities.

Simon Tait, Professor of Water Engineering at the University of Sheffield explained that "with over 3M km of sewer in Europe, subject to climate change, new environmental obligations and an aging work force, water utilities need radically new approaches to maintaining their service to citizens’ – we believe that autonomous in-sewer robots is an approach that can help meet these challenges". Our ambition is that by the end of the project we will have evaluated robot prototypes in several European sewer networks, opening the potential for widespread deployment of robots in sewers in the 2030’s.

 

*PIPEON: Robotics and AI for Sewer Pipe Inspection and Maintenance is a 4 year, €8M, multi-partner, research and development project, funded by the European Union and led by Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech).

1.-2. Working in sewers presents a myriad of technological challenges. There are currently no robots that can work without direct human intervention and last for a long time in such a featureless, harsh environments.

Credit

PIPEON, Simon Tait, University of Sheffield & TalTech

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Method of Research

News article

 

Recycling lithium-ion batteries cuts emissions and strengthens supply chain

Stanford University

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Stanford associate professor William Tarpeh and PhD student Samantha Bunke working in the Tarpeh lab.

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Credit: Bill Rivard/Precourt Institute for Energy, Stanford University

Recycling lithium-ion batteries to recover their critical metals has significantly lower environmental impacts than mining virgin metals, according to a new Stanford University lifecycle analysis published in Nature Communications. On a large scale, recycling could also help relieve the long-term supply insecurity – physically and geopolitically – of critical battery minerals.

Lithium-ion battery recyclers source materials from two main streams: defective scrap material from battery manufacturers, and so-called “dead” batteries, mostly collected from workplaces. The recycling process extracts lithium, nickel, cobalt, copper, manganese, and aluminum from these sources. 

The study quantified the environmental footprint of this recycling process, and found it emits less than half the greenhouse gases (GHGs) of conventional mining and refinement of these metals and uses about one-fourth of the water and energy of mining new metals. The environmental benefits are even greater for the scrap stream, which comprised about 90% of the recycled supply studied, coming in at: 19% of the GHG emissions of mining and processing, 12% of the water use, and 11% of the energy use.  While it was not specifically measured, reduced energy use also correlates with less air pollutants like soot and sulfur.

“This study tells us that we can design the future of battery recycling to optimize the environmental benefits. We can write the script,” said William Tarpeh (BS ’12), assistant professor of chemical engineering in the School of Engineering and the study’s senior author.

Location, location

Battery recycling’s environmental impacts depend heavily on the processing facility’s location and electricity source. 

“A battery recycling plant in regions that rely heavily on electricity generated by burning coal would see a diminished climate advantage,” said Samantha Bunke, a PhD student at Stanford and one of the study’s three lead investigators.

“On the other hand, fresh-water shortages in regions with cleaner electricity are a great concern,” added Bunke.

Most of the study’s data for battery recycling came from Redwood Materials in Nevada — North America’s largest industrial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling facility — which benefits from the western U.S.’s cleaner energy mix, which includes hydropower, geothermal, and solar. 

Transportation is also a crucial factor. In the mining and processing of cobalt, for example, 80% of the global supply is mined in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Then, 75% of the cobalt supply for batteries travels by road, rail, and sea to China for refining. Meanwhile, most of the global supply of lithium is mined in Australia and Chile. Most of that supply also makes its way to China. The equivalent process for battery recycling is collecting used batteries and scrap, which must then be transported to the recycler. 

“We determined that the total transport distance for conventional mining and refining of just the active metals in a battery averages about 35,000 miles (57,000 kilometers). That’s like going around the world one and a half times,” said Michael Machala, PhD ’17, also a lead author of the study.

“Our estimated total transport of used batteries from your cell phone or an EV to a hypothetical refinement facility in California was around 140 miles (225 kilometers),” added Machala, who was a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford’s Precourt Institute for Energy at the time of research and is now a staff scientist for the Toyota Research Institute. This distance was based on presumed optimal locations for future refining facilities amid ample U.S. recyclable batteries.

Patent advantage

Redwood’s environmental outcomes do not represent the nascent battery recycling industry’s overall environmental performance for recycling used batteries. Conventional pyrometallurgy, a key refining step, is very energy intensive, usually requiring temperatures of more than 2,550 degrees Fahrenheit (1,400 degrees Celsius).

Redwood, however, has patented a process called “reductive calcination,” which requires considerably lower temperatures, does not use fossil fuels, and yields more lithium than conventional methods.

“Other pyrometallurgical processes similar to Redwood’s are emerging in labs that also operate at moderate temperatures and don’t burn fossil fuels,” said the third lead author, Xi Chen, a postdoctoral scholar at Stanford during the time of research and now an assistant professor at City University of Hong Kong.

“Every time we spoke about our research, companies would ask us questions and incorporate what we were finding into more efficient practices,” added Chen. “This study can inform the scale-up of battery recycling companies, like the importance of picking good locations for new facilities. California doesn’t have a monopoly on aging lithium-ion batteries from cell phones and EVs.”

Looking ahead

Industrial-scale battery recycling is growing, but not quickly enough, according to senior author Tarpeh.

“We’re forecast to run out of new cobalt, nickel, and lithium in the next decade. We’ll probably just mine lower-grade minerals for a while, but 2050 and the goals we have for that year are not far away,” he said.

While the U.S. now recycles about 50% of available lithium-ion batteries, it has successfully recycled 99% of lead acid batteries for decades. Given that used lithium-ion batteries contain materials with up to 10 times higher economic value, the opportunity is significant, Tarpeh said.

“For a future with a greatly increased supply of used batteries, we need to design and prepare a recycling system today from collection to processing back into new batteries with minimal environmental impact,” he added. “Hopefully, battery manufacturers will consider recyclability more in their future designs, too.”

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Journal

Nature Communications

DOI

10.1038/s41467-025-56063-x 

Method of Research

Data/statistical analysis

Article Title

Life cycle comparison of industrial-scale lithium-ion battery recycling and mining supply chains

Article Publication Date

24-Jan-2025

COI Statement

Redwood Materials was consulted for primary industrial data but results were analyzed and interpreted by the listed authors. The authors have no competing interests.