The HpVac project is based on two scientific observations:

  1. The gastrointestinal (GI) microbiota interacts with and modifies its human host.
  2. The increasing prevalence of allergic diseases in humans, especially children, can be partially explained by a reduction in the exposure of the immune system to external stimuli due to lifestyle changes and the extensive use of antibiotics (“hygiene hypothesis”). A reduction in the diversity of the gastrointestinal microbiota is linked to many early-onset diseases, including atopic dermatitis, asthma and hay fever.

A protein produced by a bacterium living in the GI tract of 50% of humans has been shown to modulate the human immune system, with the main purpose of allowing this bacterium to perennially colonize the human GI, and avoid being cleared by the host immune system. However, this protein would also appear to provide protection against a number of allergic diseases, including asthma, atopic dermatitis and hay fever.

The HpVac project proposes the development of this protein as a treatment against these wide-spread diseases. The protein has already demonstrated its tolerability in humans (humans have harbored this bacterium for thousands of years), and its therapeutic effect (epidemiological studies on the incidence of allergic diseases in humans with or without the bacterium). If successful, a treatment based on this protein would revolutionize the treatment of allergic diseases, and represent the first significant disease-modifying treatment in years.