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 and development challengesAccording to UNAIDSthere were approximatelymillion people worldwide living with HIV AIDS at the end ofThe vast majority of people living with HIV are in lowto middle income countriesparticularly in sub Saharan AfricaA low cost vaccine is the preferred response to protect the human populationHoweverdespite tremendous effortsno effective vaccine has been foundThis is due largely to specific features of the HIVenvelope glycoproteinEnvwhich is uniquely exposed on the surface of the virionIn this SBIRwe aim to use glyco engineered CHO cell line to express stabilized Env trimermimicking the native structure on HIV virionMoreoverwe will engineer the Env to be fused with antibody fragment 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 great efforts to reduce the manufacture cost in order to have a larger 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