A University of Alabama at Birmingham startup has received roughly $1 million from the U.S. Department of Defense for a key project.
Innovation Depot-based SunFire Biotechnologies LLC received the grant to advance its development of Shigella vaccines.
Shigella is a gastrointestinal infection. It causes diarrhea, fever and stomach cramps. Shigella outbreaks occur primarily in developing countries, and the Department of Defense is funding this research because members of the military often contract it while deployed abroad.
The funds will go toward advancing an assay that will support the development the vaccines. An assay is a laboratory test used to find and measure the amount of a specific substance.
The Phase II Small Business Innovation Research grant will be disbursed over two years and will aid SunFire researchers in qualifying and validating the assay so SunFire can function as a contract research organization for other companies that are developing Shigella vaccines.
SunFire scientists used the $230,000 Phase I SBIR grant to create the assay.
SunFire co-founder Moon Nahm, M.D., said Shigella vaccines that result from the assay will also benefit indigenous populations suffering from the infections.
“Shigella is a major cause of severe diarrheal infections in developing countries," Nahm said in a release from the UAB Bill L. Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. "A Shigella vaccine would not only benefit the local population but would also provide protection for military personnel deployed to these areas. The development of a reliable, high-throughput functional test for antibodies against Shigella will facilitate vaccine development.”
SunFire Chief Operating Officer Deborah Bidanset said in the release SunFire is also developing ready-to-go kits so that vaccine pioneers can make use of the assay wherever they are.
SunFire Biotechnologies was founded in 2019 with the help of the UAB Bill L. Harbert Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The company licensed UAB technologies related to the development of pneumococcal vaccines. Nahm, who was an endowed professor of lung health in the UAB Department of Medicine until his retirement in November 2021, invented and refined these technologies during his tenure as a UAB professor.
