Has Salt Lake City, Utah-based Seek Labs Cracked the Code on Defeating the Near 100% Deadly African Swine Fever Virus?
The United States is the world's largest exporter of pork. And at the hog level, U.S. producers generated roughly $28 billion from animal sales in 2022, while employing 610,000 workers.
With America the largest exporter of pork and the global population of domestic pigs at risk, Seek Labs has built upon promising preliminary virological efforts using CRISPR-based technologies to successfully complete initial testing against Asian Swine Fever Virus in live "pigs."
Conducted outside the U.S. in an unnamed country where ASFV is endemic, the tests showed that 57% of animals treated with Seek Labs' CRISPR-based gene therapies survived longer than untreated pigs in the control group.
Seek also reported that real-time polymerase chain reaction tests (qPCR) showed that its CRISPR-therapies resulted in a nearly 80% viral load reduction in ASFV-infected animals
With nearly 115 million metric tons of pork produced each year around the world, pork is the most commonly consumed meat, as the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization has reported that pork accounts for roughly 36% of all global meat consumption.
With such data as a backdrop, the fact that the virus behind the African Swine Fever has a near 100% mortality rate in pigs makes ASFV serious indeed — especially since there is no "approved" treatment or cure for ASFV today — even if there have been zero cases reported in the United States so far.
So when Salt Lake City, Utah-based Seek Labs announced recently that it had successfully conducted initial "in vivo" tests of CRISPR-based gene-therapies with ASFV-infected animals, I took notice.
For readers who don't know Seek Labs, it's taking a dual-pronged approach to address several serious medical and life science issues.
On the one hand it's developing highly accurate, easy-to-use and significantly less expensive molecular diagnostic systems that are dramatically faster than existing options while also being designed to be deployed virtually anywhere.
Additionally, Seek is also focused on utilizing CRISPR-technologies to identify and develop pharmaceuticals targeting human and animal diseases at genetic levels, which brings us back to the African Swine Fever Virus.
ASFV: Pigs, Not Humans, and Seek Labs
To be clear, the virus that causes African Swine Flu is not contagious to humans.
But ASFV is nearly 100% deadly to domesticated swine, feral pigs, and wild boar.
In fact, a report in the October 2021 issue of NATURE estimates that the People's Republic of China likely suffered an economic loss of $112 billion in 2019 alone due to the outbreak of ASF.
The Seek Labs news release also stated that the "... 2019 outbreak of ASF in China led to the decimation of 40% of all hogs globally between 2019 and 2022."
Hence, when the FAO says that 36% of all meat consumed around the world is pork, ASFV is truly a big, big deal.
As it turns out, the U.S. is the world's largest exporter of pork. And at the swine level, U.S. producers generated roughly $28 billion from animal sales in 2022, while employing 610,000 workers.
According to its recent news release, Seek Labs has developed and completed initial "in vivo" test using CRISPR-based gene-therapies on live, domesticated pigs in a controlled, four-week study.
Due to the fact that there have been no reported cases of ASFV in the United States, these tests were conducted by Seek in an unnamed country where the virus is endemic.
According to the company, the tests showed that 57% of animals treated with its CRISPR-based gene therapies survived longer than untreated pigs in the control group.
Seek also reported that real-time polymerase chain reaction tests (qPCR) showed that its CRISPR-therapies resulted in a nearly 80% viral load reduction in ASFV-infected animals. This means that the amount of the ASF virus found in the infected pigs dropped nearly 80% after they were treated with the Seek Labs CRISPR-technologies.
As explained in its news release, Seek Labs wrote
"All surviving pigs are now being tested (by Seek) for protection against reinfection. Future studies will also look at efficacy outcomes following prophylactic versus therapeutic delivery of the CRISPR-based systems.
"The company is (also) considering applications in new viral outbreaks, including ongoing Avian Influenza (H5N1) outbreaks that have already transmitted from chickens to cows and impacted food supply in the United States."
Obviously, Seek Labs is still in the early stages of drug development.
Additionally, no regulatory body has cleared or approved the company's gene-targeting CRISPR-technologies for Avian Swine Fever or any other diseases, animal or human.
However, given my prior work with clients involved in drug discovery and development efforts, as well as my review of this news announcement, I believe that the efforts by Seek Labs are very encouraging and bear further examination.
DISCLOSURE
Our youngest son is a Seek Labs employee working on its product design and development efforts in the molecular diagnostic solutions arena.
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The African Swine Fever has a near 100% mortality rate, "... with infected pigs being symptomatic within days and typically succumbing to the disease within 2 weeks."
Outside of the U.S., the impact of
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