ANTAGEN BIOSCIENCES INC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NIAID

Description

HIVthe virus that causes AIDSis one of the world s most serious health challengesAccording to UNAIDSthere were approximatelymillion people worldwide living with HIV AIDS at the end ofThe vast majority of them are in lowto middle income countriesparticularly in sub Saharan AfricaA low cost vaccine broadly neutralizing most strains of HIV is the preferred response to protect the human populationHoweverdespite tremendous effortsno effective vaccine has been foundWe believe this could be due to the deficiency of manufacturing cell lines in synthesizingsialic acidwhich is required for vaccine developmentIn this SBIRwe aim to use glyco engineered CHO cell line to express sialylated HIV Env trimerand deliver it through nanoparticlesMoreoverwe will engineer molecular adjuvant to be codisplayed with Env on nanoparticles to enhance the interaction with the host immune systemOne of the key elements for the success of HIV vaccine is the cost effectivenessVaccine developers should make efforts to reduce the cost in order to have greater penetration of the vaccine in the risk populationWith our new approaches and advanced CHO cell expression platformwe are one step closer to achieve this goal