Intercell to head anti-fungal research consortium

Vaccines specialist, Intercell AG of Vienna is to lead a Euro 1.5 million project to develop treatments against fungal infections, coordinating a consortium of academic and commercial partners within the CanVac project, which aims to develop a vaccine and/or a monoclonal antibody-based therapy against infections caused by the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans.

CanVac was one of 41 projects to be selected from 125 applications submitted for the first two EuroTransBio transnational calls of the European Commission. The project, scheduled to run for three years, builds on the expertise of scientists and biotech companies in Austria and Germany.

The research programme will involve the Christian Doppler Laboratory (CDL) in Infection Biology “PathoFUN”. PathoFUN is located at the Max F. Perutz Laboratories, a joint venture of the University of Vienna and the Medical University of Vienna, Campus Vienna Biocentre. The CDL is headed by an expert in fungal pathogenesis, Karl Kuchler. PathoFun will focus on genomic approaches to understanding fungal virulence and on developing vaccines and monoclonal antibody-based therapies against infections caused by fungal pathogens such as Candida and Aspergillus species.

“Progress in evolving our antigen identification programme now makes it possible to identify disease-relevant and protective antigens from much more complex pathogens than bacteria, such as fungi,” said Alexander von Gabain, Intercell’s Chief Scientific Officer.

Antifungal treatments are often rendered ineffective by resistant strains, have poor side effect profile, and are not able to prevent recurrent infections in a significant number of patients. At present there are no vaccines to prevent Candidiasis or Aspergillosis in humans.

The partners in the CanVac project are Max F. Perutz Laboratories, Austria; GATC Biotech, Germany; Christian Doppler Gesellschaft; CDL at the Medical University of Vienna