Katarina Radosevic, Janssen to Present at Vaccines Conference on July 9-11, 2014, in Boston, MA

Boston, MA, June 19, 2014 --(PR.com)-- Katarina Radosevic, Vice President Immunology and Proof of Concept, Head Vaccine Discovery at Crucell Vaccine Institute, Janssen Center of Excellence for Immunoprophylaxis will give a presentation on, “Prospects for Universal Influenza Vaccine” at the 12th Vaccines Research & Development: All Things Considered Conference on July 9-11, 2014, in Boston, MA, by GTCbio.

Approximately 1 billion people worldwide get infected with influenza virus on a yearly basis, leading to severe illness in 3-5 million cases and an estimated 300,000 to 500,000 influenza-related deaths. In the current standard of care individuals are vaccinated annually with a seasonal vaccine that needs to be re-defined almost every year. Additionally, the seasonal vaccine is believed to confer protection only against a narrow range of influenza virus strains, which poses a significant threat to global health in case of a mismatch between vaccine and circulating influenza strain, or a pandemic outbreak caused by a highly virulent viral strain originating from animal reservoirs. There is, thus, a clear need for innovative steps in developing influenza vaccines. The discovery of broadly neutralizing antibodies (bnAbs) against influenza viruses has sparked a lot of interest in developing vaccines aimed at providing “universal” protection. At the same time, several bnABs have been isolated from B cells originating from humans who received a seasonal vaccine, implying that seasonal vaccines may have a broadly protective potential. Taking into account recent developments in influenza vaccinology field, Dr. Radosevic’s talk will address the current state-of-the-art of several aspects of the “universal flu vaccine”.

Dr. Radosevic will discuss the challenges faced by influenza vaccinology field, benefits and shortcomings of seasonal influenza vaccine, how to define universal flu vaccine and different ways towards universal flu vaccine.

GTCbio’s annual Vaccines Conference continues a tradition of presenting valuable updates and exposure to all aspects of vaccine development in a comfortable, interactive and friendly setting with leaders in vaccinology from industry, academia, and the government. They bring together the people who make the discoveries, make the decisions, fund the work and license the vaccines and foster their interaction with the attendees to share their perspectives of the vaccine industry.

This conference is also part of the Infectious Diseases World Summit 2014, which consists of this conference and two other conferences:

1) 3rd Annual Influenza Research and Development Conference
2) 11th Anti-infectives Partnering and Deal-Making Conference

For more information, please visit www.gtcbio.com