Cambridge Biostability joins Gates vacc adjuvant initiative

UK vaccines specialist Cambridge Biostability has joined an international alliance of scientists aiming to develop a new type of vaccine which promises to deliver higher levels of protection against three of the world's most challenging diseases - malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS. The multicenter collaboration aims to deliver safe, effective, easy-to-administer, stable vaccines which will have a significant impact on global health.

The project is funded by a grant from the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health through the Grand Challenges in Global Health initiative, which was created in 2003 by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and funded with $10.0 million over five years. This project focuses on incorporating into virus-vectored vaccines genes coding for molecules known to stimulate the body's natural immune system in order to create a vaccine that is able to elicit a stronger, more prolonged and, ultimately, protective immune response against the targeted disease.

In addition to adjuvanting the immune response, this project aims to incorporate the technologies developed by Cambridge Biostability to enable the vaccine to be formulated so that it remains active when stored and transported under field conditions.