The $20 million Aktiv-Dry research effort is funded by the Grand Challenges in Global Health Initiative, which was created by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation through the Foundation for The National Institutes of Health. Sievers' project addresses one of the 14 Grand Challenges -- the needle-free administration of vaccines by pulmonary or nasal aerosols.

David H. McAdams, a CU-Boulder doctoral student in the chemistry and biochemistry department working with Sievers, said he switched his academic focus from atmospheric chemistry particle analytics to participate in the measles project. "I saw an opportunity to use the analysis of such particulates to benefit mankind and to help save children by using inhalable vaccines."

The CU team recently tested the durability of the inhalant vaccine by shipping a batch from the Serum Institute of India to CU-Boulder, then shipping the same batch two months later to the East Coast and back to Boulder. The vaccine proved to be stable throughout the shipping process, indicating it likely would be effective under challenging environmental conditions encountered in developing nations, Sievers said.

The cost of an inhalant dose for measles developed by Sievers and his team is about 26 cents -- roughly the cost for an injectable form of the dose. As a practical matter, said Sievers, the treatment of patients with novel technologies should not be more expensive than standard treatment costs.

The new technology could potentially be used to deliver tiny antibiotics particles to treat people with multi-resistant tuberculosis, said Sievers. While the antibiotic inhalant would likely be combined with oral doses and injections, the use of CAN-BD would direct the antibiotic directly to the lungs where the disease is focused, said Sievers.

Another potential use for the CAN-BD technology is treating human papilloma virus, a sexually transmitted disease that causes cervical cancer. "More women in India today die of cervical cancer than from breast cancer, which is a much bigger killer in the United States," he said. Current treatment for papilloma virus is a three-dose injection regimen that costs about $300 -- a cost Sievers and his group would like to lower significantly for it to be distributed to women who need it in developing nations.

Source: University of Colorado at Boulder