Genocea Receives Funding For Malaria Vaccine R&D
By Cyndi Root
Genocea Biosciences has received a $1.2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to identify malaria vaccine candidates. The company announced the funding in a press release, saying that it is an extension of previous funding from the Foundation. Jessica Baker Flechtner, Ph.D., SVP of Research, said, "We've made good progress with our Malaria program and are delighted to extend our collaboration with the Gates Foundation. It is a testament to the power of ATLAS, our proprietary T cell target discovery platform, that we can seek to tackle this complex and devastating global disease."
Genocea's Malaria Program
Malaria is an infection transmitted by mosquitoes. When the mosquito bites a human, Plasmodium parasites travel to the liver, replicating and causing disease. Genocea believes that targeted T cells could kill parasites in the liver before they reach the bloodstream. Genocea’s malaria program seeks to identify parasite components that T cells could attack. As there are no licensed vaccines yet to treat the 600 million cases annually of malaria, a vaccine would make a difference to many.
Genocea Activities
Genocea is headquartered in Cambridge, MA. It has developed a proprietary method, ATLAS, to harness T cells for a wide range of diseases. The company has products in development for herpes simplex virus-2 (HSV-2), pneumococcus, chlamydia, HSV-2 prophylaxis, and cancer. Recently, the company published a paper on its ATLAS platform in the journal Virology, titled, "Identification of novel virus-specific antigens by CD4+ and CD8+ T cells from asymptomatic HSV-2 seropositive and seronegative donors.”
The Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation funded Genocea’s malaria program in 2012 with Series C financing. The current grant extends support through 2015. Genocea will use the funds to screen the malaria proteome, identifying targets for T cell responses. The Foundation states that, as in all partnerships, it will be deploying program officers to understand the progress being made, to help evaluate the challenges that arise, and to strategize for the future.
The Gates Foundation is active in life sciences, recently funding efforts to fight Ebola. The Foundation committed $50 million to contain the Ebola outbreak and interrupt transmission of the virus. The funds are provided in a flexible manner to the United Nations and other international organizations for supplies and operations. Additionally, the Foundation is working with industry to development diagnostics, prophylactics, and treatments for Ebola.