Flow Pharma, Inc. — Department of Defense STTR Phase I: CBD18A-002

Description

Flow Pharma, Inc. is a biotechnology company in the San Francisco Bay Area developing fully synthetic cytotoxic T lymphocyte (CTL)stimulating peptide vaccines for Marburg virus. The FlowVax vaccine platform allows us to create dry powder formulations of biodegradablemicrospheres and TLR adjuvants incorporating class I and class II T cell epitopes. FlowVax vaccines can be designed for delivery by injection orinhalation. An open source computer model originally developed by Microsoft Research and enhanced by us with Artificial Intelligence deeplearning, allows us to select optimal class I epitope targets on viruses for CTL attack. We will use this computer model to select class I peptidesto Marburg proteins. We will then design complimentary class II peptides for the class I peptides using the TEPITOPE and ProPred algorithms.The La Jolla Institute for Allergy & Immunology will determine the MHC binding affinity of the selected class I and class II epitope candidatesfor selected Mamu and HLA specificities using purified MHC molecules and high affinity radiolabeled peptide ligands. High affinity cross-reactiveclass I and II peptides will be selected as vaccine candidates to protect Rhesus Macaques from a lethal challenge of Marburg virus with crossprotectivepeptides to protect humans.