MicroVaccines SA has been officially incorporated as a spin-off of the IRB

MicroVaccines SA (from now on “MV”) has been officially incorporated in Canton Ticino on October 26th, 2018 as a spin-off of the Institute for Research in Biomedicine (from now on “IRB”) by Dr. Fabio Grassi, M.D., Ph.D.

“This is an incredible achievement for a researcher and M.D., whose ambition is to translate experimental findings to medical application” says Dr. Fabio Grassi, founder and Chairman of MV.

“The technology platform the company is based on is the result of a surprising development of the research work carried out in my lab at the IRB that progressed from studies on the cell biology of T cells to the discovery of a crucial mechanism regulating the mutualism between our organism and the intestinal microbiota. I would like also to mention the unique support of IRB, its Director Antonio Lanzavecchia, Fondazione Agire and Centro Promozione Start-up of Università della Svizzera Italiana that were all instrumental in allowing this project to realize.”

The goal of the company in the coming years will be to apply the licensed know-how to in vitro and in vivo pre-clinical studies to move forward to fund raising to perform clinical trials.

About Fabio Grassi
Fabio Grassi earned his degree in Medicine at the University of Pavia and a Ph.D. in Microbiology at the University of Milan. He was assistant professor at San Raffaele Scientific Institute in Milan (1994-1998), Marie Curie fellow at Hôpital Necker in Paris (1998-2000) and Special Fellow of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society at Dana Farber Cancer Institute, Harvard Medical School in Boston (2000-2002). He is full professor of Biology at the Medical School of the University of Milan. His research at IRB is focused on understanding mechanisms regulating mucosal adaptive immune response as well as mutualism with intestinal commensals.

About IRB
The Institute for Research in Biomedicine was founded in 2000 with the goal of advancing the study of human immunology, with particular emphasis on the mechanisms of host defense. The IRB benefits from a wide international network of collaborations. In addition, the IRB provides teaching and training programs for graduate students from Swiss and foreign Universities.