Research Triangle Park-based AlphaVax, which has received more than $160,000 in funding support from the North Carolina Biotechnology Center, is starting a genital chlamydia vaccine research study with a University of California scientist.
AlphaVax is initiating studies on a prototype vaccine in collaboration with Luis de la Maza, MD, professor of pathology and laboratory medicine at U-C, Irvine. Dr. de la Maza is a leading chlamydia researcher, and his laboratory has established a useful animal model of chlamydial genital disease.
Genital chlamydial infection, caused by the bacterium Chlamydia trachomatis, is the most prevalent bacterial sexually transmitted disease worldwide. Although antibiotic therapy is available, it is usually a "silent" undetected infection, showing no symptoms in three-quarters of infected women and half of infected men. In untreated females, 40 percent of infections cause serious urogenital disorders including pelvic inflammatory disease, ectopic pregnancy and infertility.
In April AlphaVax reported initial positive results from a Phase I clinical trial of a vaccine to treat cytomegalovirus, a herpes virus that is a major cause of morbidity and mortality in congenitally infected infants, and stem cell and organ transplant recipients.