Patent 7867498 was granted and assigned to Novartis on January, 2011 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention relates to polypeptide carrier proteins that comprise at least five CD4+ T cell epitopes, for conjugation to capsular polysaccharides. The carrier proteins are useful as components of vaccines that can elicit a T-cell dependent immune response. These vaccines are particularly useful to confer protection against infection from encapsulated bacteria in infants between the ages of 3 months and about 2 years.