begun marketing the technology to major human and animal health companies. Nonprofit partnerships will also be sought to seek development pathways for humanitarian targets such as malaria. The projected low cost of the vaccine opens doors for use of the platform against diseases in developing countries. Further, given the relative simplicity of the formulations, multiple start-up companies could also be formed. Two are currently being contemplated: one for a viral infection that affects domestic swine, and another for the bacterium Chlamydia, my primary research interest. Long associated with being a sexually transmitted disease, Chlamydia has numerous species that produce chronic infections in humans and animals, including cattle. Most chlamydial infections do not cause overt disease, but nevertheless negatively influence important production traits such as fertility and milk production. The basic science approach to chlamydial infections has now produced the knowledge and methods that allow us to put all the pieces of the puzzle together. We have recently shown that these chlamydial infections, which every livestock animal experiences, also profoundly reduce growth rates of young animals. We think that growth suppression of chlamydiae by antibiotics is a major reason why
65 Fig. 2. Comparison of the novel vaccination platform with traditional vaccination methods.
antibiotics work as growth promoters, and believe that our vaccination approach may have the same effect. About 80 percent of all antibiotics are used worldwide as growth-promoting feed additives, with the well-known side effect that they increase antibiotic resistance of all bacteria. Therefore, our vaccine against chlamydiae may replace antibiotics as a growth promoter and contribute to better control of antibiotic resistance in all bacteria.
Additional internal development of this technology is planned over the near future, including optimizing the vaccine formulations, studying different diseases, and performing tests in different animal species, including chickens, swine, and cattle. If the public benefit possibilities for this technology can be realized for even just a handful of the identified targets, the impact on how we prevent and treat infectious diseases may be remarkable.