Scientist gets US grant for germ warfare vaccine

Telegraph
By Nic Fleming
(Filed: 28/02/2005)

A British scientist is developing the first single stable vaccine against the use of botulism as a biological weapon.

The United States government will today announce a $3.5 million (£1.8 million) grant to fund the cell biologist Dr Bruce Roser to apply a ground-breaking new vaccine technique to botulinum toxins, the most poisonous substances known to man.

Dr Roser, the chief scientist at Cambridge Biostability, believes that the production of stockpiles of jabs using his innovative stable liquid vaccine technology will eliminate the threat of fanatics releasing airborne botulism by 2008.

The grant, issued by the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is part of the Project BioShield, a $5.6 billion (£3 billion) plan announced last year to develop vaccines and other therapies to combat fears of bio-terrorism.

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