Wayne State scientist files for Chlamydia vaccine patent

A Wayne State University scientist has a filed for a patent for a Chlamydia vaccine, a development that could lead to a significant change in battling the disease over the next decade.

"People have been trying to find a protective vaccine for Chlamydia for 30-40 years," says Judith Whittum-Hudson, professor of immunology & microbiology at Wayne State University. "There have been a lot of failures."

Whittum-Hudson's research identified three peptides that have demonstrated a vaccine effect to inoculate against Chlamydia successfully in an animal model. Those findings could result in a vaccine for humans. Wayne State has filed patent applications for the vaccine and licensed them a start-up company.

Chlamydia is more like a virus, making it very hard to treat, and often making the treatment difficult to the patient. Whittum-Hudson's vaccine could avoid that all together by inoculating people. The vaccine is in its pre-clinical phase and would take about a decade to fully develop and commercialize.

Source: Judith Whittum-Hudson, professor of immunology & microbiology at Wayne State University
Writer: Jon Zemke

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