Military contracts for new flu vaccine

SEATTLE, Jan. 7 (UPI) -- Seattle's Infectious Disease Research Institute has been funded to develop a single-dose influenza vaccine in case of pandemic flu outbreak.

The money for research was given by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the U.S. Army Research Office.

The amount of the grant and the length of the project weren't disclosed.

"We are in a unique position to bring the vaccine adjuvant and the delivery technologies together to elicit better and more rapid stimulation of the body's defenses," said Darrick Carter, the director of formulations at IDRI and its principal investigator.

Carter said the grant will support IDRI's proof-of-concept pre-clinical and Phase 1 clinical work combining technologies to make a vaccine capable of being effective after a single inoculation.

The device-adjuvant platform resulting from this program can be applied to intradermal delivery of a variety of vaccine products, targeting many of the world's most challenging diseases.