STC.UNM Signs License Option Agreement With GeneThera for E. coli O157:...( WHEAT RIDGE Colo. Oct. 27 /- Gene...)

WHEAT RIDGE, Colo., Oct. 27 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- GeneThera, Inc. (Pink Sheets: GTHR), announced today that it has signed an agreement with STC.UNM (STC), the technology-transfer arm of the University of New Mexico (UNM), giving GeneThera an option to a license to worldwide development and distribution rights to a vaccine developed at UNM's Health Sciences Center that is designed to significantly inhibit the carriage and shedding of the E. coli bacteria in cattle.

The technology consists of a vaccine that when given to cattle reduces and inhibits the carriage and shedding of enterohemorrhagic E. coli (such as serotype O157:H7). This vaccine consists of live attenuated bacteria that were created for this purpose by Dr. Edgar Boedeker, a Professor in the Internal Medicine Department at UNM's Health Sciences Center, and Dr. Chengru Zhu, formerly of UNM but now Chief of Environmental Microbiology in the Maryland Department of Health. These bacteria are harmless to humans and animals because the key virulence genes of the bugs are mutated by molecular approaches.

According to the CDC, " ... there may be about 70,000 infections with E. coli O157 each year in the United States. We can only estimate because we know that many infected people do not seek medical care, many do not submit a stool specimen for testing, and many labs do not test for STEC. The bacteria that make these toxins are called 'Shiga toxin producing' E. coli, or STEC for short."

Shiga toxin is one of the most potent toxins known to man, so much so that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) lists it as a potential bioterrorist agent (CDC, n.d.).

This vaccine, when used in cattle, inhibits the carrying and shedding of bacteria that are known to induce food borne illness such as E. coli O157:H7. Vaccinated cattle will have a greatly diminished ability to carry and shed these pathogenic bacteria. The result will be the reduced contamination of meat and wat
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