Streptococcus pneumoniae kills over a million young children a year, most of them in the developing world. Yet currently available pneumococcal vaccines are only effective against strains circulating in Europe and the US. How can we make affordable vaccines that work globally?
Richard Malley, MD, senior associate physician in Medicine at Children’s, set out over a decade ago to develop a vaccine that would be inexpensive, work at an early age and provide immunity against all pneumococcal strains (Prevnar only covers 13). With his collaborators, including mentor Porter Anderson, PhD, Malley has developed two vaccine strategies and is gearing up to test them in the clinic.
In this interview, we had the chance to sit down with Malley and discuss his team’s strategies to develop these vaccines, the development and collaborations they set up to further this goal, and the future developments needed to make their vision a reality.
For more information on the technologies, click here and here.
