Federal Grant Award Summary

The University of Washington received a $3.41 million Project Grant from the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) under the Allergy and Infectious Diseases Research program (CFDA 93.855), awarded June 10, 2026, with a completion date of May 31, 2030. The project will develop and evaluate a live attenuated Chlamydia trachomatis (CT) vaccine candidate to address the urgent public health need for effective CT infection prevention. The research will generate a genetically improved attenuated CT strain with a clean deletion of the gard gene, validate its attenuation characteristics through genetic and phenotypic analysis, and conduct immunogenicity and efficacy studies in female macaques to determine optimal vaccine dosing and protective efficacy against wildtype CT challenge.

This research directly advances vaccine development objectives within the federal program's scope by leveraging recent advances in Chlamydia genetic engineering to produce a preclinical vaccine candidate with broad-spectrum protective potential. The work will produce scientific knowledge regarding the immunological mechanisms of whole-organism vaccines and generate data supporting the translational pathway from nonhuman primate models toward human clinical vaccine development. As CT represents the leading cause of bacterial sexually transmitted infection and a significant source of morbidity in women, successful completion of this project will contribute critical safety and efficacy data needed to advance this vaccine candidate toward future clinical evaluation.