CU professor receives patent for vaccine

BOULDER – CU-Boulder professor Robert L. Garcea received a patent for a vaccine that may prevent HPV infection, a sexually transmitted disease, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office said.

Garcea was not immediately available for comment about the patent approval. He works in the Molecular, Cellular and Developmental Biology department at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

In general, the vaccine is less expensive to produce than one that’s currently available in the U.S. market, said Rick Silva, director of the University of Colorado, Denver, technology transfer office.

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“And it doesn’t need to be refrigerated, so it can be used in the developing world,” Silva said of the vaccine.

Clinical trials for the vaccine may soon be conducted in Alabama and some foreign countries to start on the process to get it approved by the Food and Drug Administration for commercial sale, Silva said.

Garcea applied for the patent in 2009, according to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. The patent is for a “therapeutic and prophylactic vaccine for the treatment and prevention of papillomavirus infection.” Papillomavirus can cause cervical cancers.