RE: New Data on Moderna’s Zika Vaccine Could Raise Hopes for Its Covid-19 Vaccine15 Apr 2020 22:53
From mm note released today.
Quoting verbatim from 2016 Rns
The three Affimer binders are highly specific to the Zika NS1 protein and can differentiate in human serum from five other closely related viruses that give similar symptoms: Dengue, Yellow Fever, West Nile, and Japanese and Tick-borne Encephalitis. Since these viruses are very similar, there is currently no validated antibody that detects Zika virus specifically, which is a limiting factor in the development of a reliable, quick diagnostic test...
The ability to rapidly generate new diagnostic reagents in response to outbreaks of infectious agents is critical to meeting an urgent medical need, as recently evidenced by the SARS and Ebola virus outbreaks. The very high specificity of Avacta's Affimer technology, together with the speed with which new Affimer binders can be identified and characterised, makes the technology ideal for rapidly responding to the need for detection and monitoring of new outbreaks.
The Group intends to commercialise Affimer based rapid diagnostics through co-development and licensing to third party diagnostic developers.
While I've been copying the and has beet me to it.