Thursday, June 5, 2008

Genocea and PATH collaborate on pneumococcal vaccine

By Mass High Tech Staff

Vaccine development company Genocea Biosciences Inc. has teamed up with global nonprofit PATH and Richard Malley, associate professor of pediatrics at Children’s Hospital Boston, to develop a new Streptococcus pneumoniae vaccine for particular use in developing countries. The collaboration involves research on “common protein” vaccines that could have widespread impact, according to Genocea officials.

PATH is a Seattle-based nonprofit dedicated to improving global health.

Malley is a leader in pneumococcus immunization and has served as principal investigator of a 2006 PATH project for developing whole-cell pneumococcal vaccine for children.

All three collaborators will participate in the 6th International Symposium on Pneumococci & Pneumococcal Diseases June 8-12 in Reykjavik, Iceland.

Genocea Biosciences was founded in 2006 and is based on developments from the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard Medical School. It uses a high-speed screening system that can identify which of a disease’s thousands of proteins, or antigens, would elicit an immune response in humans.