Vaccines & Immune Biology

CPS conjugated vaccines, such as those used to combat pneumonia, are difficult and expensive to produce. George Wang of Ohio State University will use bacteria engineered to express CPS, the carrier protein and a key enzyme which will bind the two together in an effort to develop a simpler and more economically feasible method of vaccine production.

To interrupt reproduction of the malaria parasite in the mosquito gut, Greg Garcia and Sheetij Dutta of Walter Reed Army Institute of Research seek to identify and block a gametocyte stage receptor for xanthreunic acid, which is known to trigger the differentiation of gametocytes, an essential step in the life-cycle of the malaria parasite.

Jefferson Vaughan of the University of North Dakota will seek to augment zooprophylaxis, the practice of using livestock to divert mosquito blood feeding away from humans, by developing an anti-mosquito vaccine for cattle that kill the insect before they bite humans.

Johnjoe McFadden of the University of Surrey in the United Kingdom will modify the BCG vaccine currently used against bovine and human tuberculosis, and develop a complementary diagnostic test that can distinguish between tuberculosis infection and vaccination. BCG is the only effective tuberculosis vaccine, however it interferes with diagnostic tests, preventing the distinction between infection and vaccination, which is important for control efforts in developing countries.

Geraldine Taylor and colleagues at The Pirbright Institute in the United Kingdom will develop a thermo-tolerant vaccine based on human adenovirus 5 (Ad5) against peste des petits ruminants (PPR), a highly contagious disease found in goats and sheep, that enables the distinction between infected and vaccinated animals (known as DIVA vaccines). Current live attenuated vaccines require cold storage, which is unavailable in many developing countries, and vaccinated animals cannot be differentiated from infected animals, complicating disease control efforts.

Alexander Douglas of the Jenner Institute, University of Oxford in the United Kingdom will use synthetic nucleic acid molecules known as aptamers to develop a model that can be used to predict the success or failure of new vaccines in clinical trials. This work could help to remove some of the uncertainty in the early-stage development of new vaccines.

Vandana Patravale of the Institute of Chemical Technology in India will develop a sub-unit nanovaccine using green technology against brucellosis, a zoonotic disease which is endemic in sub-Saharan West Africa. The vaccine will be developed for non-invasive intranasal administration and the investigators will study vaccine delivery and its ability to induce a strong protective immune response against Brucella in mice, with a view to future clinical testing in humans.

Alison McCormick of Touro University, California in the U.S. will test the ability of a low-cost plant-based synthetic biology method to produce a combined viral protein epitope with an antigen RNA expression system for use in an RNA malaria vaccine. Using plants for this viral transfection system could make RNA vaccine production scalable and cost effective.

George Warimwe of the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom will develop a vaccine to protect a variety of species, including humans, sheep and cattle, against Rift Valley fever, which can cause serious illness. Current vaccines that are in development have safety concerns for use in humans. They have developed a Rift Valley fever vaccine using a replication-deficient simian adenovirus as a safe vector that is easy and inexpensive to manufacture, and have tested its safety and immunogenicity in mice, and begun field-testing in sheep in Kenya.

Jean-Pierre Scheerlinck of the University of Melbourne in Australia will develop an effective vaccine against the parasite Theileria parva, which causes East Coast Fever in cattle, by conjugating parasite lysates to nanobeads, which act as an adjuvant to induce a strong immune response. Upon infection, the parasite enters cells of the immune system making classical vaccination strategies that induce antibody responses ineffective. Protecting these animals against infection instead requires a cytotoxic T cell immune response.