Microscience and USM--through its constituents, the University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute (UMBI) and the University of Maryland Baltimore (UMB)--announced the license agreement in which the company acquires exclusive rights to the delivery of DNA using any strain or serovar of Salmonella enterica - in all fields except for delivery of HIV antigens. That right has been retained by UMBI. The license gives rights to Microscience under patents already granted in the USA and Europe.

Microscience, based in Berkshire, United Kingdom, will use its proprietary attenuated Salmonella serovar Typhi and serovar Typhimurium derivatives to deliver a range of DNA antigens for treatment of viral diseases and cancers and prevention of bacterial infections. The potential of Microscience's proprietary oral delivery system as vehicles for DNA vaccines was raised by a recent report of positive immune response and lack of adverse reactions in healthy volunteers after their oral immunization with Microscience's Salmonella serovar Typhi and serovar Typhimurium derivatives [the journal Infection and Immunity 70(7):3457-3467, 2002].

The inventors of DNA Bactofection are with UMBI's Institute of Human Virology. They are David M. Hone, and Robert J. Powell, George K. Lewis, who heads vaccine research at IHV. Hone and Powell were previously with UMB's Center for Vaccine Development; Lewis with UMB's Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine.

At UMBI, the three will continue to explore the potential of the DNA Bactofection technology for development of an oral vaccine against AIDS. Their progress in the use of live attenuated intracellular bacteria, Salmonella and Shigella, as oral delivery vehicles f
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Contact: Steve Berberich
berberic@umbi.umd.edu
301-738-6295
University of Maryland Biotechnology Institute
5-Sep-2002