Farmington-based CaroGen Corp., an emerging immunotherapy company, has formed a consortium with the University of Connecticut and Yale University School of Medicine scientists to speed up development of a Zika vaccine.
Zika is spread mostly by the bite of an infected Aedes mosquito, and children with devastating birth defects have been born to women in Brazil who were infected with Zika during their pregnancies.
The consortium is comprised of key experts, including Yale Professor John Rose, a world renowned virologist and chairman and scientific advisor of CaroGen; Dr. Paulo Verardi, associate professor of pathology at UConn and an opinion leader in vaccine research; and a team of vaccine development experts at CaroGen.
Dr. Valerian Nakaar, vice president of research and development at CaroGen, said the collaboration will help accelerate development of the vaccine.
The group will use CaroGen’s virus-like vesicle (VLV) platform technology to develop a vaccine.
