The long term objective is to develop, manufacture and market a product line of antigen/organism specific transfer factors (TF; an immune potentiator) with application for immunoprophylaxis and immunotherapy of a wide variety of human veterinarion diseases for which a strong dependency on the development cell mediated immunity has been documented for host protection. To accomplish this objective, Intron, Inc. intends to develop organism/antigen specific transfer factors by immunizing pregnant dairy cows. Intron, Inc. scientists have demonstrated that cows with pre-existing cellular immune responsiveness to certain microorganisms will harbor TF's specific for these organisms in post-parturition colostrum (and milk). Colostrum potentially represents an inexpensive rich source of TF. It is not known, however, when or by what route a cow must be immunized in order to induce the accumulation of a particular organism specific TF in colostrum. Phase I research will address: (a) the immunization route to be used, and (b) the number of immunizations and their temporal relationship to parturition. In Phase II, Intron, Inc. will employ the information obtained from Phase I to bulk produce certain TF's in bovine's for use in double-blind clinical trials to document the efficiency of this immune potentiator in selected human and veterinarian diseases which have a major socio-economic impact.
