NovaSterilis Inc., a leader in the development and commercialization of supercritical carbon dioxide technology, has been granted US Patent 7,919,096. The patent, dated April 5th 2011, is entitled “Inactivating Organisms Using Carbon Dioxide At or Near Supercritical Pressure and Temperature Conditions.”
The patent describes the use of a novel sterilization apparatus together with chemical additives to create and produce sterile, immunogenic preparations having reduced or no infectivity. Using the NovaSterilis technology, whole bacterial pathogens were inactivated at or near CO2 supercritical pressure and temperature conditions, then utilized in experiments to assess immunogenicity. Data accumulated from the research indicated that the technology was capable of producing an effective yet non-infective vaccine “surrogate” for the bacterial pathogens.
“Clearly, the US Patent Office recognized the novelty and importance of this invention,” commented David Burns, President of NovaSterilis. “We are excited that this technology may hold the key to developing an immediate therapeutic response to infectious agents, providing the scientific community with another tool to respond to pandemics or biologic threats”
Besides sterilizing and inactivating the pathogen, the NovaSterilis technology caused no adverse reactive response, and the test subject demonstrated accumulated antibodies (immune recognition) upon a challenge. A key benefit is the speed with which the technology inactivated the pathogen without altering physical structures vital to the immune response. This technique could be used to provide a quick response vaccine to a bacterial threat.
NovaSterilis is currently commercializing other patents, including terminal sterilization of biomedical materials using supercritical CO2.
Innovative vaccine shields livestock from four strains of foot and mouth disease