MSU to license another brucellosis vaccine

The inventor of a recent vaccine technology for the organism that causes brucellosis in cattle and bison has another vaccine development that could be an improvement on current methods.

David Pascual, a professor of veterinary molecular biology, and scientist Xinghong Yang at Montana State University, have developed a vaccine that uses enough pieces, or subunits, of the Brucella bacterium to trick the animal into developing immunity to the disease.

The advantage of using subunits is that the vaccine isn’t made from a live organism that could actually infect the animal or the person administering the vaccine, said MSU technology transfer officer Nick Zelver.

Other advantages include the lack of false-positives when testing bison for infection, unlike with current vaccines, and the ability to combine this vaccine with others to improve the level of protection against disease, Zelver said. It also protects against a broad range of Brucella variants.

The research has been done with mice. Now the technology is ready for licensing. Interested companies should contact Zelver at (406) 994-7868 or by e-mail at [email protected] by June 30.

Full Story: http://www.montana.edu/commserv/csnews/nwview.php?article=2430