UCLA–Wayne State NIH Zika Grant Funds Planned Newborn Mouse Tests of Candidate Compounds

Researchers at UCLA and Wayne State University have received a four-year, $2.7 million National Institutes of Health grant to study how Zika virus injures the developing eye and to pursue drug approaches that could preserve infant vision ^[1]. UCLA Health Sciences announced the award, held by Dr. Vaithi Arumugaswami of the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and Dr. Ashok Kumar of Wayne State University School of Medicine, in a release distributed by Newswise on October 13, 2026 ^[1]. The project continues work funded by an earlier NIH grant and adds planned tests of candidate compounds in newborn mice ^[1].

The scientific starting point

Zika's reputation rests mainly on birth defects of the brain, yet infants whose mothers were infected can also sustain eye injury ^[1]. The release places retinal and optic nerve damage within congenital Zika syndrome and notes that it can cause vision problems that last a lifetime ^[1]. No Zika vaccine or antiviral drug has been approved, and the mechanism of eye injury is not well understood ^[1].

The earlier work centered on the retinal pigment epithelium, a one-cell-thick tissue layer that sustains the eye's light-detecting cells ^[1]. With a method that separates protein complexes by size to reveal which proteins associate, the team found that Zika proteins appear to bind host proteins involved in eye development and energy regulation ^[1]. Reducing several of those host proteins let the virus replicate faster, which the researchers read as a sign that the proteins help resist infection ^[1]. A screen of thousands of compounds yielded several that blocked the virus and, in early experiments in infected adult mice, lessened eye damage ^[1].

What the new funding covers

The grant supports study of how Zika disrupts these protein interactions in three systems ^[1]:

• Lab-grown retinal pigment epithelium cells ^[1].
• Lab-grown mini retinas, simplified models of the developing eye derived from human stem cells ^[1].
• A newborn mouse model of Zika eye disease, useful because mouse eyes complete their development after birth, so infection can be studied in an eye that is still forming ^[1].

The team will test whether the candidate compounds lessen eye damage in infected newborn mice and whether they disturb normal retinal development, which the release calls a key safety question for any treatment that might eventually be given during pregnancy ^[1]. In lab tests the compounds also reduced infection by dengue and West Nile viruses, which the release presents as a possible sign of broader antiviral use ^[1].

Why it matters to research and health system leaders

The release argues for funding this kind of work between outbreaks, which Arumugaswami described as episodic ^[1]. "The time to study the virus is now, while things are quiet, not after an outbreak has taken hold," he said ^[1]. The release notes that there is no worldwide surge at present, but that the mosquito that carries Zika has become established in parts of the United States and that locally acquired dengue cases have been reported in the Los Angeles area ^[1].

For grant offices, the award is a two-institution project built on a prior NIH grant, with UCLA collaborators Dr. Mehdi Bouhaddou on the protein work and Dr. Robert Damoiseaux on the drug screening, and staff scientist Dr. Anne Zaiss supporting the new studies ^[1].

What to watch next

• Whether the compounds lessen eye damage in infected newborn mice, as they did in early adult-mouse experiments ^[1].
• Results of the retinal development safety testing, given the pregnancy context the release describes ^[1].
• Whether the activity against dengue and West Nile seen in lab tests holds up in further work ^[1].
• Progress toward human testing; Arumugaswami named reaching a clinical trial with a drug that benefits patients as the bottom line ^[1].

Limitations

The source is a press release issued by the grantee institution, not a peer-reviewed report, and its text does not name the candidate compounds, specify the NIH institute making the award, or cite publications describing the earlier findings ^[1]. The reported protective effects come from cell studies and early experiments in adult mice, and the release describes no human data ^[1].