The koala population in Australia is declining and it's already declining because of a number of other factors, loss of habitat for example, road accidents and now also infertility which really brings koalas to the brink of extinction.So, this is what we call a subunit protein vaccine.
The antigen, the part of the pathogen that is being recognized by the immune system, in this case is a bacterial protein which was designed and manufactured by our Australian colleagues and it's formulated with an adjuvant, a molecule that enhances the immune response and this adjuvant was developed here at VIDO as part of a larger research program that we had a few years ago on adjuvants.
This is really the combination of formulating the adjuvant with the protein together that now stimulates the immune system to make an effective immune response against this important disease.
Dr. Gerdts says a number of smaller scale trials have been performed already and the vaccine looks very promising so the goal now is to go into larger trials, ideally trying to vaccinate the whole population of koalas as quickly as possible.
Source : Farmscape.ca