The University of Texas Health
Science Center at San Antonio (UT
Health San Antonio) will direct a team of researchers to
investigate a novel oral vaccine for chlamydia, the most reported
sexually transmitted disease, with funding from the National
Institutes of Health.
SAN
ANTONIO, May 9, 2024 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- A
research team led by The University of
Texas Health Science Center at San
Antonio (UT Health San Antonio) has been awarded
approximately $11 million over five
years by the National Institutes of Health to study a first-ever
chlamydia vaccine.
Chlamydia is the most reported sexually transmitted disease and
affects about 4 million people in the
United States each year, according to the Centers for
Disease Control and Prevention. And yet, while there are vaccines
for other sexually transmitted infections including HPV, hepatitis
A and hepatitis B, there is none for chlamydia.
The infection often is left untreated due to the lack of
specific symptoms. Untreated chlamydial infections can lead to
severe complications including pelvic inflammatory disease,
infertility and ectopic pregnancy.
The UT Health San Antonio-led study of a novel oral vaccine that
could protect against chlamydia infection is being funded through a
cooperative agreements research project grant, known as a U01
grant.
"We are excited about receiving the U01 award because it will
enable us to move our basic microbiology and immunology bench
research work closer to developing a medically significant reagent
for 'making human lives better,' our institution's overall
mission," said Guangming Zhong, MD,
PhD, professor of microbiology, immunology and molecular genetics
with the Joe R. and Teresa Lozano Long
School of Medicine at UT Health San Antonio, and principal
investigator of the study.
Zhong said the prospective vaccine, called intrOv, came about
after several years of persistent effort studying chlamydial
pathogenic mechanisms in mice.
While investigating mouse-adapted chlamydia, the team accidently
found that genital chlamydia that spread to the gastrointestinal
tract established long-standing colonization.
From there, they tried an oral inoculation of chlamydia to the
GI system and found that it became not only non-pathogenic but also
offered protective immunity against subsequent infection in other
tissues including the genital tract and airways.
This surprising finding, Zhong said, led them to conclude that
an oral delivery of chlamydia could serve as a vaccination against
the infection. The team then created mutant versions of the
infection that could no longer cause disease but could induce
transmucosal protection.
One of these attenuated mutants, intrOv, included unique
qualities viable for cross-species translation to the human
pathogen of chlamydia.
"Since the human pathogen chlamydia has more than 15 serotypes,
developing a vaccine against all 15 serotypes is challenging,"
Zhong said. "Using the mouse-adapted, chlamydia-bases vaccine
intrOv to cover all 15 serotypes is a nice surprise."
This grant supports the production of investigative new
drug-enabling data for moving the oral chlamydia vaccine to Phase I
trials.
"We will optimize the immunization regimens, identify protection
immune correlates in mouse models and validate the vaccine efficacy
in pigs and non-human primates," Zhong said.
If all goes well at that stage, the team will file an
Investigational New Drug, or IND, application with the Food and
Drug Administration to advance the vaccine to clinical trials by
the end of the grant's time frame.
Back in 2022, UT Health San
Antonio was granted an exclusive global license to allow
Ohio biopharmaceutical company
Blue Water Vaccines Inc. to develop Zhong's findings into an oral
vaccine for chlamydia.
Study collaborators from the Department of Microbiology,
Immunology and Molecular Genetics at UT Health San Antonio include
Zhenming "Jack" Xu, PhD, and Nu
Zhang, PhD, who will provide B cell and T cell
expertise.
Other collaborators include Pat
Frost, DVM, and Marie-Claire Gauduin, PhD, primate
genital-tract infection experts with Texas Biomedical Research
Institute; Yufeng Wang, PhD,
bioinformatics expert with The University of
Texas at San Antonio; Luis M de la Maza, MD, PhD, with the
University of California at Irvine;
Huizhou Fan, MD, PhD, with Rutgers
University; Harlan Caldwell,
PhD, chief of chlamydial diseases section at the National Institute
of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, NIAID; Robert Brunham, MD, with the University of British Columbia; and William Geisler, MD, MPH, from the University of Alabama.
The University of Texas Health
Science Center at San Antonio (UT
Health San Antonio), a primary driver of San Antonio's $44.1
billion health care and biosciences sector, is the largest
academic research institution in South
Texas with an annual research portfolio of $413 million. Driving substantial economic impact
with its six professional schools, a diverse workforce of more than
8,500, an annual expense budget of $1.46
billion and clinical practices that provide 2.6 million
patient visits each year, UT Health San Antonio plans to add more
than 1,500 higher-wage jobs over the next five years to serve
San Antonio, Bexar County and South Texas. To learn about the many ways "We
make lives better®," visit https://uthscsa.edu/.
Media Contact
Steven Lee, The University of Texas Health Science Center at
San Antonio, 210-450-3823,
lees22@uthscsa.edu, https://news.uthscsa.edu/
View original
content:https://www.prweb.com/releases/ut-health-san-antonio-to-lead-11-million-nih-funded-study-of-a-first-ever-oral-chlamydia-vaccine-302141851.html
SOURCE The University of Texas
Health Science Center at San
Antonio