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Schistosomiasis, a disease historically associated with poverty, lack of sanitation and social inequality, is a chronic, debilitating parasitic infection, affecting hundreds of millions of people in endemic countries. Although chemotherapy is capable of reducing morbidity in humans, rapid re-infection demonstrates that the impact of drug treatment on transmission control or disease elimination is marginal. In addition, despite more than two decades of well-executed control activities based on large-scale chemotherapy, the disease is expanding in many areas including Brazil. The development of the Sm14/GLA-SE schistosomiasis vaccine is an emblematic, open knowledge innovation that has successfully completed phase I and phase IIa clinical trials, with Phase II/III trials underway in the African continent, to be followed by further trials in Brazil. The discovery and experimental phases of the development of this vaccine gathered a robust collection of data that strongly supports the ongoing clinical phase. This paper reviews the development of the Sm14 vaccine, formulated with glucopyranosyl lipid A (GLA-SE), from the initial experimental developments to clinical trials including the current status of phase II studies.

Schistosomiasis, a disease historically associated with poverty, lack of sanitation and social inequalities, is a chronic, debilitating parasitic infection, affecting hundreds of millions of people in endemic countries. Although schistosomiasis control approach has shown that chemotherapy is capable of reducing morbidity in humans, rapid re-infection is a reminder that the impact of drug treatment on transmission control or elimination initiatives is marginal. In addition, and regardless of more than two decades of well-executed control activities based on large-scale chemotherapy, the disease is expanding in many areas including Brazil. The development of the Sm14/GLA-SE schistosomiasis vaccine is an emblematic open knowledge innovation that has successfully completed Phase I and Phase IIa clinical trials, with Phase II/III trials underway in the African continent and to be followed in Brazil. Discovery and experimental phases were long term achievements leading to a robust collection of data that are strongly supporting the presently ongoing Clinical Phase. This paper reviews the development of the Sm14 vaccine formulated with GLA-SE (Glucopyranosyl Lipid A), from the earlier experimental developments to clinical trials including the recent status of Phase II studies.

The increase in the number of infections caused by Candida species and the consequent use of antifungal agents favours an increase of resistant isolates. The aim of this study was to evaluate the antifungal susceptibility of Candida spp. isolates from patients with different systemic predisposing factors to candidosis. Seventy-nine Candida spp. isolates were assayed for in vitro susceptibility to amphotericin B, fluconazole, 5-flucytosine and itraconazole using the technique proposed by the Clinical and Laboratory Standards Institute (CLSI). Four C. albicans, one C. guilliermondii, four C. parapsilosis and two C. tropicalis isolates were resistant to amphotericin B. Only two isolate was resistant to itraconazole. All the isolates tested were susceptible to fluconazole and flucytosine. It could be concluded that the most efficient drugs against the Candida isolates studied were fluconazole and flucytosine and that all of the antifungal agents used in this study were effective against the Candida spp. isolates tested.

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