# Preclinical Development of a Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Vaccine

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MED BR GALVESTON · 2022 · $740,027

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY/ABSTRACT
Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever virus (CCHFV) is a tick-borne emerging pathogen that causes severe and
often fatal hemorrhagic fever in humans across a broad geographic range that includes more than 30 countries.
The NIAID lists CCHFV as a Category A priority pathogen, a biological agent that poses the highest risk to
national security and public health. CCHF is of particular importance to public health as there are no licensed
vaccines or treatments available for use in humans, and because of the concern that the virus could be used as
an agent of biological terrorism. The goal of this project is to advance the development of a recombinant vaccine
based on next generation vesicular stomatitis virus (rVSV) vectors expressing the CCHFV glycoprotein as a
potential medical countermeasure that can provide protection across all six genetically distinct clades of CCHFV.
This application proposes to develop and pre-clinically validate a rVSV vectored CCHF vaccine. Next generation
Vesiculovax™ CCHF vaccines will be compared head-to-head with a prototype rVSV vaccine that has been
shown to completely protect animals against lethal CCHFV infection. Vaccines will be compared for
immunogenicity, lack of neurovirulence, and the ability to protect STAT-1 knockout mice against all six M
segment clades of CCHFV. A lead candidate vaccine will then be down selected. Supporting studies using a
newly developed lethal nonhuman primate model of CCHFV will be employed to confirm protective efficacy of
the lead vaccine candidate, assess the ability to the vaccine to provide rapid protection, and finally to begin to
determine correlates of protection. This proposal will draw together expertise in vaccine development, CCHFV
biology, and animal modeling needed to develop a vaccine that meets both the outbreak and bioweapon
scenarios that require rapid protection against all CCHFV clades with a single administration.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10440280
- **Project number:** 5R01AI152207-03
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS MED BR GALVESTON
- **Principal Investigator:** Thomas William Geisbert
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $740,027
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2020-07-15 → 2025-06-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10440280

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10440280, Preclinical Development of a Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever Virus Vaccine (5R01AI152207-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10440280. Licensed CC0.

---

*[NIH grants dataset](/datasets/nih-grants) · CC0 1.0*