Development of a Single-Dose Contraceptive Rabies Vaccine

Milosz Faber of Thomas Jefferson University in the U.S. will develop a combined contraceptive rabies vaccine that both protects dogs against rabies and reduces their population levels in order to control the incidence of human rabies. Human rabies causes 70,000 deaths annually and is mostly spread by dogs. Current therapeutic approaches to control dog rabies require multiple doses and have had limited success. Faber has designed a safe dog rabies variant that can induce a strong and long-lasting immune response when introduced in mice. He will combine this vaccine with gonadotropin-releasing hormone (GnRH), which causes infertility. Three different carrier proteins will be conjugated to GnRH and tested in combination with the vaccine for safety and for inducing immune responses upon a single dose in mice.