Interferon alpha (IFN-a) is an effective part of the host innate immune response, which can be manufactured as a recombinant human protein with broad clinical appeal [14] . Consensus (c)IFNa, also known as IFN alfacon-1 and Infergen, is a licensed, second generation IFN-a engineered to contain the most frequently occurring amino acids among the nonallelic IFN-a subtypes. Previously, we have demonstrated that cIFN-a can be used effectively alone, or in combination with ribavirin, to treat Pichindé virus (PICV) infection in hamsters [15, 16] , an experimental model of acute arenaviral disease [17] . However, while cIFN-a has clinical value, its usefulness is hindered by its short half-life and cost to manufacture. There is an initial distributive half-life of 7 minutes and a beta half-life of 2 to 5 hours [14] . The rapid systemic clearance requires frequent dosing to achieve desired therapeutic levels. Consequently, treatment can result in well-documented toxicities which include headache, depression, hair loss, fever, and malaise. In order to combat the rapid degradation, PEGylated forms of recombinant IFN-a have been introduced with half-lives that are on the order of days instead of hours, thus reducing the number of injections to once per week [18] . However, the cost to manufacture PEG-IFN-a is exceedingly high, and the PEGylation process has been shown to reduce the activity of IFN-a, thereby further increasing the production costs.