Cost-reducing protein production and delivery for sexually transmitted disease prevention.

Table 2 summarizes our two approaches: vaginal delivery of antibodies to immunize passively and edible microspheres for active immunization. These approaches have different roles in disease prevention in communities and each may be most useful for different kinds of diseases. The passive approach could easily be extended to lots of different sexually transmitted diseases by just changing the specificity of the antibody incorporated into the device. The active immunization approach requires more specific development steps for each particular type of disease. Detailed analysis of the cost-reduction potential of these approaches is not yet available, but estimates of the cost to manufacture these products can be made, based on the initial laboratory studies (Table 4). The results to date suggest that both products are feasible and that they could be manufactured as cheaply as other products (such as condoms and oral contraceptives) that people currently use for sexual health. All products, once made available, could have a significant impact on the reduction of healthcare costs.