Genocea to highlight progress in malaria vaccine development at World Vaccine Congress

Genocea Biosciences today announced that it will highlight new progress it is making toward the development of an effective vaccine for malaria during a presentation today at the World Vaccine Congress by Jessica Baker Flechtner, Ph.D., Vice President of Research. Dr. Flechtner's presentation will showcase the company's novel approach to discovering vaccine candidates derived from antigens that stimulate the T cell arm of the immune system.

“Genocea is rapidly identifying and evaluating T cell antigens to create a vaccine that is both widely effective and can be produced on a broad scale.”

If successful, the company's approach could produce a far more robust immune response than vaccine candidates that have been trialed so far, providing new hope of effectively addressing this devastating public health issue.

"Despite the community's best efforts to combat this global threat, there are still no viable candidate vaccines that provide robust immunity across a diverse population," noted Chip Clark, President and CEO. "Genocea is rapidly identifying and evaluating T cell antigens to create a vaccine that is both widely effective and can be produced on a broad scale."

To date, the most encouraging results in malaria vaccine development have come from vaccination with whole organisms, suggesting that liver immunity is critical to rousing a protective immune response, Flechtner said. However, traditional methods of identifying T cell antigens associated with this type of immunity are cumbersome and time consuming, and have yielded candidate vaccines that provide only partial protection. Genocea is able to use its proprietary technology platform—the AnTigen Lead Acquisition System (ATLAS™)—to profile human immune responses and quickly evaluate thousands of potential antigens to validate a small number of proteins appropriate for testing as vaccine candidates.

Genocea is currently employing this approach in malaria to investigate a subset of more than 800 proteins from the liver stage of infection to rapidly identify antigens that may be suitable vaccine candidates. Once the magnitude of T cell responses in humans has been measured, the most promising antigens will be incorporated into a vaccine formulation. This approach may result in both a more powerful immune response and a drastically reduced timeline to clinical testing.

Comments

The opinions expressed here are the views of the writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of News Medical.
Post a new comment
Post

While we only use edited and approved content for Azthena answers, it may on occasions provide incorrect responses. Please confirm any data provided with the related suppliers or authors. We do not provide medical advice, if you search for medical information you must always consult a medical professional before acting on any information provided.

Your questions, but not your email details will be shared with OpenAI and retained for 30 days in accordance with their privacy principles.

Please do not ask questions that use sensitive or confidential information.

Read the full Terms & Conditions.

You might also like...
Early RSV vaccination in pregnancy provides best protection for newborns