Grant: Master's Award: Canada Graduate Scholarships

With the fear of a wide spread pandemic of influenza on the rise the need to develop new classes of antiviral drugs is of vital importance. Each year the influenza virus infects approximately 600 million people. 250,000-500,000 of these cases result in death. Vaccines are often a first line in defense in suppressing the spread of influenza; however these vaccines are limited in the prevention of new strains which continuously arise in the population due to the high mutation rate of the virus. In the last decade multiple antiviral agents have been developed that interfere with the virus' ability to reproduce, including Tamiflu, the most prescribed drug for the treatment of influenza. Prior to the "swine flu" outbreak, the emergence of a single point mutation within a key enzyme (called neuraminidase) had resulted in an increase of Tamiflu resistance in circulating strains of H1N1. While effective against the vast majority of "swine flu" infections, Tamiflu-resistant "swine flu" (also an H1N1 variant) has recently been reported in North America. An alternative influenza antiviral, Relenza, is less susceptible to resistance, however cannot be administered orally. We propose to develop a novel second generation influenza antiviral agent with similar potency and oral availability as Tamiflu, with a Relenza-type mechanism of reduced susceptibility to resistance.