Wednesday 25th June 2014
Title of the Seminar:”From genomes to vaccines: defeating serogroup B meningitis”
The next event of the HAPPY HOUR SEMINARS will take place on June 25, 2014, at the classroom 3, building B, floor -2 of the School of Medicine and Surgery of the University of Perugia.
Dr Duccio Medini (Head Quantitative Biology, Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics) will illustrate the outstanding achievement by Novartis in the development of an effective vaccine against meningitis B.
Neisseria meningitidis causes globally 1.2 million invasive disease cases and 135,000 deaths per year, mostly in infants and adolescents.
A century of traditional vaccinology research had failed the fight against Serogroup B meningococci (MenB), mostly prevalent in developed countries.
Eighteen years after the publication of the first complete genome sequence of a living organism, thanks to an innovative genome-based approach named “reverse vaccinology”, the first broadly effective MenB vaccine was licensed for use by the European Medical Agency and other authorities, and is being implemented worldwide.
We will review this long and passionate journey, from the pathogen population genomics to antigen discovery, vaccine clinical development and public health impact: two decades of scientific and technological innovation to defeat one of the most sudden and devastating invasive diseases.
