Vaccine News and Research

Latest Vaccine News and Research

Clinical trials to test the safety of a first-of-its-kind human hookworm vaccine

Clinical trials to test the safety of a first-of-its-kind human hookworm vaccine will begin in the Washington, DC area in a couple of months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration conferred investigational new drug status on the vaccine.

27 Jan 2005

Basis for deciding cost effectiveness of TB vaccination programmes questioned

Current risk assessment methods, which are used to inform the timing and extent of tuberculosis (TB) vaccination programmes, may overestimate the real risk of contracting the disease up to threefold, reveals research in Thorax.

26 Jan 2005

Bill & Melinda give $750 million for vaccines and immunization

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation announced a grant of $750 million, and Norway committed $290 million, to support the work of the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization (GAVI).

25 Jan 2005

New technique can greatly facilitate the development of vaccines against infectious diseases such as smallpox, malaria and tuberculosis

Because the new technique can synthesize a large number of proteins very quickly, it has potential to accelerate vaccine development, particularly crucial in the fight against bioterrorism.

25 Jan 2005

School influenza vaccinations best strategy for slowing flu transmission

The best strategy for minimizing future influenza morbidity and mortality would be to concentrate vaccinations in school children and high-risk groups, according to a new research commentary by scientists at Emory University.

25 Jan 2005

Activate dendritic cells turn on biological clock

A molecule specially modified by researchers at Baylor College of Medicine can reset the biological clock for cancer vaccines, potentially making them more potent.

24 Jan 2005

ID Biomedical begins development of pandemic influenza vaccine

ID Biomedical announced today that it has begun development of an experimental ("mock") vaccine against a strain of the influenza virus, H5N1, that experts believe could cause a deadly worldwide epidemic (pandemic) of influenza.

19 Jan 2005

NIH begins Phase 1 clinical trial of HIV vaccine candidate

GenVec announced today that the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), National Institutes of Health (NIH), has begun the second Phase 1 clinical trial in healthy adult volunteers of an HIV vaccine candidate jointly developed by the Dale and Betty Bumpers Vaccine Research Center (VRC), a part of NIAID, and GenVec.

19 Jan 2005

Jump starting T cells in skin cancer

Advanced melanoma, the most deadly form of skin cancer, can be successfully treated in some cases by vaccinating patients with tumor proteins.

17 Jan 2005

African health leaders vow to keep polio eradication goal

Following a year in which Africa grappled with an escalating polio epidemic, ministers of health of the key affected countries today concluded that the spread of polio was slowing in most countries. They agreed to step up their vigilance and their vaccination programmes in order to meet polio eradication targets this year.

17 Jan 2005

Researchers attack cervical cancer

As more and more promising results of clinical trials on vaccination against human papillomaviruses are published, the more likely it becomes that an HPV vaccine will be the first licensed immunization against a sexually transmitted disease.

17 Jan 2005

Prototype needle-free drug and vaccine delivery device

Dr Mark Kendall, an Oxford University Research Lecturer in Engineering and Associate Director of the PowderJect Centre for Gene and Drug Delivery Research, has been named one of the top younger engineers in the country for his research into needle-free vaccine delivery technology.

17 Jan 2005

Scientists are a step closer to developing drug targets to treat fungal meningitis

Scientists are a step closer to developing drug targets to treat fungal meningitis -- the infection linked to at least three deaths on Vancouver Island -- thanks to the sequencing of two Cryptococcus genomes by an international team that included researchers at the University of British Columbia and the BC Cancer Agency's Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre in Vancouver.

17 Jan 2005

FDA licenses Sanofi pasteur vaccine for protection against meningococcal disease

Sanofi pasteur, the vaccines business of the sanofi-aventis Group, announced today that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has licensed Menactra (Meningococcal [Groups A, C, Y and W-135] Polysaccharide Diphtheria Toxoid Conjugate Vaccine) for protection against meningococcal disease in adolescents and adults aged 11-55 years.

17 Jan 2005

MHRA and FDA to inspect Chiron's Liverpool manufacturing facility

Chiron Corporation announced at a presentation at the 23rd Annual JPMorgan Healthcare Conference that the company anticipates that the UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), accompanied by U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) inspectors as observers, will conduct a series of inspections of Chiron's Liverpool manufacturing facility.

13 Jan 2005

New tool to assess the quality of home health care

University of Michigan researchers are part of a team that has developed a new tool to assess the quality of home health care, with the goal of improving care and providing meaningful feedback about the care.

12 Jan 2005

Gene transfer used to deliver antibodies to fight Anthrax

Using gene transfer technology, investigators were able to immunize mice against anthrax in just 12 hours, according to new research featured in the February 2005 issue of Molecular Therapy, the peer-reviewed scientific journal of the American Society of Gene Therapy (ASGT).

12 Jan 2005

Major partnership with National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases for Narhex Life Sciences

Australian drug specialist Narhex Life Sciences, has announced a partnership with one of the world’s foremost US medical research centres to evaluate its protease inhibitor Nar DG 35 Prodrug for its activity against Hepatitis C and SARS viruses.

12 Jan 2005

Scientists uncover new evidence to help explain statins’ effects in Alzheimer’s disease

Scientists at Jefferson Medical College and the Farber Institute for Neurosciences at Thomas Jefferson University in Philadelphia have taken another step in understanding the potential effects of anti-cholesterol drugs on Alzheimer’s disease.

12 Jan 2005

Using models to understand malaria

Malaria is one of the world's major killers. More than 500 million people live in epidemic regions and some 2 million - mostly children - die each year. And each year, drug resistance increases in the malarial parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, and the search for new treatments becomes more desperate.

12 Jan 2005