Atreca lands $6M for vaccine research

Atreca, a San Carlos, CA-based biopharmaceutical company, captured a $6 million investment from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to accelerate the discovery and development of novel vaccines and therapeutics for human infectious diseases.

Under the terms of the agreement, Atreca will apply its Immune Repertoire Capture technology to a set of infectious diseases. The company will then share the results for use in the discovery and development of vaccines, therapeutics and diagnostics. The partnership will focus on malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis.

Atreca's Immune Repertoire Capture technology uses next-generation sequencing to identify functional antibodies produced in patients during an immune response. The antibodies can then be used to identify the targets of an immune response.

The grant comes on the heels of another Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation funding of the development of vaccines; the foundation gave Emory University $6 million to work on an effective vaccine for HIV/AIDS earlier this month.

"We are grateful to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for its vision," said Tito A. Serafini, CEO, chief scientific officer and co-founder of Atreca. "This commitment from the foundation provides Atreca an opportunity to apply the company's Immune Repertoire Capture technology to meet key challenges in global health."

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