Vaccines & Immune Biology

Humberto Lanz-Mendoza of Mexico's Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica will test whether mosquitoes can become resistant to dengue and malaria by the introduction of non-virulent pathogens, which might stimulate immune priming and protect against subsequent infections.

Hiroshi Kiyono of the University of Tokyo will work to advance a rice-based oral vaccine that can induce both mucosal and systemic immunity. If successful, the MucoRice system can be self-administered and will not require syringes or refrigeration.

Professor Hiroyuki Matsuoka of Jichi Medical University in Japan will attempt to design a mosquito that can produce and secrete a malaria vaccine protein into a host's skin. The hope is that such mosquitoes could deliver protective vaccines against other infectious diseases as well.

DNA vaccines, which can elicit killer T-cell response, have thus far failed to elicit reliable, strong immune response in humans. Cevayir Coban of Osaka University in Japan will use newly identified intracellular signaling molecules as components of DNA vaccines against malaria.

Allan Saul of the Novartis Vaccines Institute for Global Health in Italy will genetically modify gram-negative bacteria to generate large quantities of their outer membranes, which can be loaded with antigens that stimulate immune responses. This technology could prove to be a reliable and economic platform for generation of new vaccines.

Dirk Linke of the Max Planck Society in Germany seeks to identify and classify all the molecules that make up the cell wall of gram-negative bacteria, which causes a major portion of infectious diseases. By recognizing common elements among these molecules, a broad-range vaccine could be developed to protect against a number of these diseases.

Hugo Soudeyns of Canada's Centre de Recherche du CHU Sainte-Justine will incorporate engineered frameshifting gene cassettes into vaccine vectors in hopes of eliciting broader T helper and cytotoxic T cell response, leading to better protection against disease.

Volker Gerdts of Canada's Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization proposes to use live viral vectors to immunize fetuses during pregnancy to induce immune responses in the unborn baby, thereby protecting the infant against early life infections.

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.

Type III protein secretion systems are used by many bacteria to inject proteins into mammalian cells. Jorge Galan of Yale University will develop an antigen delivery machine based on the type III protein delivery system that will not require the use of live-attenuated bacteria, offering a safer vaccine platform.