Seattle BioMed has been awarded seven-year, $9.8 million grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases to develop a vaccine containing neutralizing antibodies against the HIV-1 virus strain.The organization will work with the Rockefeller University, the University of Washington, Seattle Children’s Hospital and the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center under the Preclinical/Clinical AIDS Vaccine Development grant, Seattle BioMed said Monday.
“The HIV-1 epidemic remains a significant threat to global health, with over 3 million AIDS-related deaths each year,’ said Leonidas Stamatatos, IPCAVD program principal investigator and scientific director at Seattle BioMed.
“While access to anti-retroviral therapies has increased, the best route of defeating the epidemic remains a universally effective HIV-1 vaccine,”
Stamatatos, Noah Sather of Seattle BioMed, David Rawlings of Seattle Children’s Research Institute and Michel Nussenzweig of Rockefeller University will lead the project’s initial phase to carryout a preclinical evaluation of immunogens.
Julie McElrath of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and HIV Vaccine Trials Network will manage the second phase, which involes production and clinical trial of the immunogens.
