Team:Slovenia/Project

Almost half of the world population is infected with bacteria Helicobacter pylori and in some regions it may infect 90% of the population. Infection with H.pylori causes gastric ulcer but it is also the main cause of gastric and duodenal cancer. Infection can be treated with combination of antibiotics and proton pump inhibitors. Antibiotics can cause long-term side affects, especially in large bowel, because it abruptly modifies bacterial flora. Proton pump inhibitors are so far very expensive and most of the world population can not afford it. Vaccine would be the lasting solution and particularly a type that would be affordable for the third world population. We plan to develop a new generation vaccine against Helicobacter pylori. This bacteria uses the whole array of tricks to avoid detection by our immune surveillance, therefore we will have to employ principles of synthetic biology and current state of the art of human immune system and host-pathogen interactions to design an efficient vaccine. This will be a daunting task particularly in the set time but we expect at least to prove the principle of some innovative approaches of vaccine preparation.