A $10.7 million National Institutes of Health grant has been approved in the hopes to develop a gonorrhea vaccine.
Aleksandra Sikora, an Oregon State University College of Pharmacy researcher, will be a part of the study. She will work with the primary investigator Ann Jerse with the Uniformed Services University of Health Sciences and other collaborators from five more universities.
The grant sets up the Gonorrhea Vaccine Cooperative Research Center, which has a goal to develop a vaccine that can be used in clinical trials in five years.
Sikora said researchers are excited to have been awarded the grant so their research can be expanded to include the development of a vaccine against a disease that still plagues humanity these days. She said it allows her students and lab personnel to engage with well-known gonorrhea researchers in the U.S.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has labeled the bacteria Neisseria gonorrhoeae are superbug because it’s been resistant to every class of antibiotic. A vaccine is critical is getting control over the STD, which infects 78 million new people every year. If left untreated, the disease can cause a host of health problems for men and women.
Emory University, Duke University, the University of North Carolina, the University of New Mexico and the University of Virginia are also participating in the research.
Written by Mark Riegel, MD
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