A vaccine which may help improve the health of humans worldwide is moving from research to development because of a local partnership.
The University of Arizona and Arizona State University have partnered with Tucson-based biotech company Anivaxon the licensing needed to develop a vaccine for a poultry-borne illness.
The vaccine is designed to combat campylobacter, a common bacterial infection in chickens passed onto humans. It causes gastrointestinal illness in 1.3 million people each year in the United States, resulting in more than a billion dollars in health-care costs.
UA discovered the antigens which combat the bacteria and ASU developed the vector, or delivery mechanism, to carry the antigen. Since each is a separate discovery, they both required their own intellectual property license to sign with Anivax to produce the vaccine.
