Polio

Ernest Darhok of Broadreach in South Africa will use mobile technology to improve access to child immunization services for populations living on the Kenya-Uganda border and help ensure all children are fully vaccinated. Refugee populations living in cross-border settings and migrant communities are particularly difficult to cover because of limited access, poor coordination across borders, and lack of efficient tracking.

Mustafa Naseem of the University of Michigan in the U.S. will apply machine-learning algorithms to identify potentially falsified digital vaccination records in Pakistan. Pakistan is one of only three remaining countries where polio is still endemic. Particularly rural healthcare facilities are struggling to provide enough vaccinations due to highly populous provinces and a lack of resources and staff, and there is a risk that records are falsified to save time or bias the results.

Michael Schrader of Vaxess Technologies Inc. in the U.S. will develop a microneedle patch that stabilizes vaccines and can deliver multiple doses through the skin at defined times thereby reducing cost waste and the need for repeat immunizations. Vaccinations delivered intradermally via microneedles are at least as effective as intramuscular delivery via injection but reduce the requirement for needles and trained health workers.

Sebastian Ulbert of the Fraunhofer Institute for Cell Therapy and Immunology in Germany will develop a simple and safer method to inactivate viruses to reduce the cost of vaccine production. Currently the production of inactivated viral vaccines requires treating the viruses over several weeks with toxic chemicals which then need removing. This procedure is time-consuming, hazardous and costly and reduces vaccine activity.

Yong Zhang of the National Institute for Viral Disease Control and Prevention in China will characterize vaccine-derived polioviruses (VDPV), which emerge from the widely used oral polio vaccine and can cause disease outbreaks, to aid surveillance and eradication efforts. Polio has been largely eradicated from many countries by vaccination. However, the vaccine itself is an attenuated form of the poliovirus that can revert back to a virulent form.

Ian Jones of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom will investigate new methods to produce empty poliovirus capsids. These are virus-like particles that stimulate the same immunity as poliovirus itself but are completely non-infectious. A successful technology could offer cost and safety benefits leading to the replacement of traditional polio vaccines. In Phase I, he provided proof-of-concept for efficient assembly of empty viral capsids in vitro by testing different approaches to reduce the activity of the 3C enzyme, which has been associated with toxicity.

Ralph Tripp at the University of Georgia in the U.S. will identify genes that, when inhibited, enhance viral replication in the host cell lines used in the manufacture of vaccines in order to reduce the cost of vaccine production. In Phase I, he performed RNA interference screens to identify 21 host genes that, when inhibited, could enhance poliovirus replication and thereby vaccine production. In Phase II, Tripp will broaden his approach to vaccine production against rotaviruses, which cause substantial childhood mortality particularly in developing countries.

Panduranga Rao and Nagendra Hegde of Ella Foundation in India will develop and test for use in a vaccine a live single-cycle poliovirus that has been modified to eliminate the gene essential for replication. This highly disabled virus will be tested for its immunogenicity and its inability to re-emerge as vaccine-derived poliovirus (VDPV).

Olen Kew of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. will attempt to develop a safe and effective polio strain for use in an inactivated vaccine by modifying codon usage patterns in polio strains to control viral mutation rates, lower infectivity, and raise genetic stability.

Nick Grassly of Imperial College London and colleagues at CMC-Vellore in India will try to improve the immune response to oral poliovirus vaccine among children in India by treating enteric infections before vaccination. If successful, this simple intervention could reduce the number of vaccine doses required to protect children in lower-income countries.