$1.7 Million Supports Neonatal Sepsis Vaccine Development

Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) today announced it is awarding $1.7 million to Syntiron to develop a maternal vaccine that targets Escherichia coli and Klebsiella pneumoniae.

Syntiron's Alloy-EK vaccine leverages iron receptor proteins (IRPs) as vaccine targets. IRPs are highly genetically conserved, which means they are less likely to change since they perform essential functions.

This makes these proteins reliable vaccine targets.

Syntiron developed the Alloy Platform to manufacture and formulate IRP vaccines safely that maintain robust immunity and cover a broad range of bacterial strains.

Neonatal sepsis is a life-threatening response to bloodstream infections that occur in newborns fewer than 28 days old. Due to their immature immune systems, newborns are particularly susceptible to infections.

Since neonatal sepsis progresses rapidly, the risk of death from neonatal sepsis increases by 7.6% every hour a treatment is delayed.

The BARNARDS study estimated that 2.5 million neonates or infants die in the first month of life of sepsis annually, with the most significant burden in low- and middle-income countries. 

"The bacteria targeted by this vaccine are a tremendous burden on public health for babies, children, and adults worldwide," said Lisa Herron-Olson, Ph.D., Managing Director of Syntiron, in a press release on January 18, 2024.

"Pregnant women are at particularly high risk of infection by these same bacteria that can cause neonatal sepsis in newborn babies."

"Preventing these infections by vaccination offers substantial potential health benefits to mothers and babies while reducing the spread of antimicrobial resistance."

Syntiron's innovation with the Alloy Platform leveraged molecular, bioinformatic, and immunological principles to engineer simpler proteins enriched in linear, immunodominant, and highly conserved peptides derived from IRPs.

Founded in 2004, Syntiron is a biotechnology company based in Saint Paul, MN, and has several vaccines in development that target bacterial infections.=