READDI awarded $5M by RTI's Forethought Research Collaboration Challenge

READDI was selected from among 136 applications to receive the award, aimed at accelerating the production of antiviral drugs.

RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — RTI International, a nonprofit research institute, today announced a group of nine researchers representing the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Duke University, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina State University and RTI as the winner of the institute’s Forethought Research Collaboration Challenge. The team will receive $5 million in seed funding from RTI for their research proposal.

Led by Nat Moorman, Ph.D., an associate professor in UNC-Chapel Hill’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology, the group of researchers seeks to create a broad spectrum of antiviral drugs that would be effective against entire families of viruses that cause epidemics and pandemics. These new drugs would treat infected individuals between the time a virus emerges until vaccination development to prevent health care systems from being overwhelmed and help maintain economic stability.

The work is already underway as part the Rapidly Emerging Antiviral Drug Development Initiative (READDI), a collaboration led by UNC-Chapel Hill that Moorman co-founded.

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