Aethlon Medical, Inc. (OTCBB:AEMD) announced today that it has agreed to collaborate with researchers at the National Institute of Virology (NIV) to initiate testing its Hemopurifier(TM) technology as a potential treatment for Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever. The NIV is a leading infectious disease research center in India, and is designated as a collaborating laboratory of the World Health Organization (WHO). It was established in 1952 under the auspices of the Indian Counsel of Medical Research (ICMR) and the Rockefeller Foundation in the United States. The ICMR was established by the Government of India in 1911 and oversees medical research in the country.

Under the collaboration, initial testing of the Hemopurifier(TM) will focus on in vitro studies that document the removal rate of Dengue virus and related toxins from blood. Dengue Virus and virulent Dengue Hemorrhagic Fever (DHF) represent an international health issue that remains untreatable with traditional antiviral drug and vaccine therapy. The global prevalence of dengue has grown dramatically in recent decades. The disease is now endemic in more than 100 countries, and according to the World Health Organization, as many as 50 million cases of dengue infection occur each year. Initial manufacturing and shipping of Hemopurifier(TM) devices to the NIV is expected to occur in the first quarter of 2007.

Many viral pathogens, including Dengue, are not treatable with antiviral drug or vaccine therapy. When therapies do evolve, viruses often mutate to become resistant to treatment. Viruses that cross over from animal species into man compound the treatment challenge. Recent examples of such zoonotic transmission include HIV, SARS, West Nile, Ebola, Marburg, and most recently the H5N1 strain of Avian Influenza. Genetic modification of viruses with the intent to create drug- and vaccine-resistant bioterror threats minimize the likelihood that traditional therapeutics will keep pace.

The Aethlon Hemopurifier(TM) is a first-in-class device designed to assist in the treatment of drug- and vaccine-resistant pathogens. The device promises to augment the benefit of drug therapy when available, and serves as a first line countermeasure in the absence of drug or vaccine treatments. The technology converges the blood filtration principles established in hemodialysis and plasmapheresis with the immobilization of affinity agents that capture envelope viruses by the surface carbohydrate structures they have evolved to evade the natural immune response. As such, the Hemopurifier(TM) seeks to reduce the body burden of infectious virus and related toxins, thus increasing the likelihood that a patient’s own immune response can overcome infection.