UBI is internationally recognized as a leader in the development of synthetic peptide-based functional antigens and their applications in immunotherapeutics and vaccines for prevention and treatment of infectious diseases and other immune disorders, as well as immunodiagnostics for detection and management of diseases. UBI's R & D efforts are linked to top academic centers worldwide, and have received significant support and validation through grants and collaborations with the US National Institutes of Health (NIH), Food and Drug Administration (FDA), Department of Defense (DOD), the World Health Organization (WHO), and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA).
A new class of site-directed biopharmaceuticals has been developed through application of our advanced core technologies for functional antigenics. The UBI core technologies in functional antigenics proceed through a series of steps to: 1) identify functional antigenic sites on ligand and receptor proteins through molecular modeling and our own immunological process of site-directed serology, 2) mimic those sites as synthetic peptide antigens through outstanding molecular design, and 3) significantly amplify therapeutic immune responses to our synthetic peptide antigens with the key UBITh® technology for immune enhancement. The UBITh® technology significantly amplifies the therapeutic immune responses to our vaccines and immunotherapeutics. The UBITh®-enhanced peptide immunogens are then formulated into adjuvanted vaccine preparations with our proprietary immunogen delivery systems for both human and animal health applications. We formulate our immunotherapeutics and vaccines for rapid responsiveness followed by long-term duration of immune response. Where it is advantageous, such as for the immunotherapy of AIDS, UBITh® immunogens together with antibody engineering are employed for the production of therapeutic monoclonal antibodies, but in most cases the direct immunization with the UBITh® immunogens is preferred.
Functional antigens employing synthetic peptides offer significant advantages over serological diagnostic tests utilizing alternative technologies for detection of disease associated antibodies. There is immediate application of these functional antigens as immunodiagnostics. UBI has an outstanding track record in product development, including developing FDA approved diagnostic tests for HIV 1,2, as well as other viral antibody screening tests including HCV, HTLV I,II, and SARS in human health care, and the revolutionary high impact ELISA tests for FMDV NS and VP1 for purposes of differentiation and blood screening. Carefully selected synthetic peptide antigens offer improved sensitivity and specificity and unique differentiation capacity relative to existing blood tests which rely on viral lysate or recombinant DNA-produced antigens as their key components. Moreover, these chemically defined diagnostic antigens often have high degrees of synergy with our chemically-defined immunotherapeutics and vaccines. |
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