NIH Watch [to 4 October 2014]
:: NIH awards seven new vaccine adjuvant discovery contracts
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID awarded seven research contracts to discover and characterize new adjuvants, or substances formulated as part of vaccines to enhance their protective ability.
“The goal of this research is to identify novel adjuvant candidates that safely and selectively boost vaccine-induced immune responses,” said NIAID Director Anthony S. Fauci, M.D. “Such adjuvants could be used to improve current vaccines, extend the vaccine supply or enhance vaccine efficacy in people with immature or weakened immune systems, such as infants and the elderly.”
Total funding for these contracts, which are accelerating progress toward the goals described in NIAID’s Strategic Plan for Research on Vaccine Adjuvants, could reach approximately $70 million over five years.
The following institutions received the new contracts
:: University of California, San Diego, La Jolla. Dennis Carson, M.D., principal investigator
:: Boston Children’s Hospital. Ofer Levy, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator
:: Vaxine PTY LTD, South Australia, Australia. Nikolai Petrovsky, Ph.D., principal investigator
Corixa Corporation (now part of GlaxoSmithKline), Hamilton, Montana. Jay Evans, Ph.D., principal investigator
:: Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Herman Staats, Ph.D., principal investigator
:: Oregon Health & Science University, Portland. Jay Nelson, Ph.D., principal investigator
:: University of Kansas, Lawrence. Sunil David, M.D., Ph.D., principal investigator