EpiVax receives $458,000 NIH grant to develop universal #influenza #vaccine
Dr. Annie De Groot, CEO and CSO of EpiVax, who is speaking at the 11th annual World Vaccine Congress Washington in April, said: “There is an urgent, unmet need for an influenza vaccine with greater potency and wider application to diverse flu viruses that can also be developed more rapidly than conventional influenza vaccines.”
“The world is looking for faster, safer and more effective ways to prevent the spread of flu. We are especially aware of the need for new technologies to accelerate production of flu vaccines in a pandemic scenario.”
The award will allow EpiVax to develop an epitope-based influenza vaccine that “primes” conventional influenza vaccines and can stand on its own in a conventional vaccine shortage.
Vaccine development will follow EpiVax’s well-established genomes-to-vaccine approach, it said. EpiVax’s computational tools identify T cell epitopes of interest that are experimentally validated in vitro and in vivo; the epitopes provide the information needed to trigger a protective immune response.
There is a whole day dedicated to Federal Influenza Strategy at the World Vaccine Congress Washington in April, and Dr Anne De Groot will be discussing the identification of T-cell epitopes to create immunogenic and protective vaccines from whole genomes. Download the brochure to find out more
