Vaccines & Immune Biology

Louis Schofield of James Cook University in Australia will develop a broad-spectrum malaria vaccine that is effective against different life-cycle stages of multiple species of the causative Plasmodium parasite. More than one third of the world's population is at risk of contracting malaria. However developing an effective vaccine is challenging because humans are infected by five quite distinct Plasmodium species.

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.

Miguel Prudencio of Instituto de Medicina Molecular in Portugal  will test the theory that modified live rodent malaria parasites (P. berghei) can be used in a vaccine to elicit a strong immune response in humans without being able to infect human red blood cells and cause illness.

Shi-hua Xiang of the Dana Farber Cancer Institute in the U.S. proposed engineering Lactobacillus, bacteria which normally reside in the human genital and gastrointestinal tract, to carry anti-HIV agents such as neutralizing antibodies, peptides, or other inhibitors. He and his colleagues hypothesized that introducing the engineered bacteria into the gastrointestinal tract would allow the bacteria to colonize and provide long-lasting protection against the virus.

Ali Salanti of the University of Copenhagen in Denmark will develop and test a vaccine combining a new placental malaria vaccine candidate with the cervical cancer vaccine, with the potential of inducing a strong protective response against both diseases simultaneously. This project's Phase I research demonstrated that a combinatorial HPV and placental malaria vaccine induced highly functioning antibodies relevant to both diseases.

Juliana Cassataro of the Universidad Nacional de San Martí­n-CONICET in Argentina will test whether the bacterial protease inhibitor Omp19 can make vaccines more effective when they are administered orally. Oral delivery of vaccines is far simpler than by injection, which is particularly useful in low-resource settings, and it may also stimulate mucosal immunity making them more effective against some diseases. However, most vaccines administered orally are degraded in the stomach or do not induce a sufficient immune response to protect against the disease.

Juliana Cassataro of the Universidad Nacional de San Martín-CONICET in Argentina will test whether the bacterial protease inhibitor Omp19 can make vaccines more effective when they are administered orally. Oral delivery of vaccines is far simpler than by injection, which is particularly useful in low-resource settings, and it may also stimulate mucosal immunity making them more effective against some diseases. However, most vaccines administered orally are degraded in the stomach or do not induce a sufficient immune response to protect against the disease.

Elizabeth Ryan of Colorado State University in the U.S. will screen a diverse, global set of rice varieties to identify bioactive components in the bran that augment mucosal immunity against enteric bacterial pathogens. In this project's Phase I research, Ryan and her team identified multiple mechanisms of mucosal immune induction and demonstrated that increased dietary rice bran intake reduces host susceptibility to enteric infections via enhanced gut mucosal immunity.