A Single-Administration Prime-Boost Vaccination Platform

Robert Garcea of the University of Colorado Boulder in the U.S. will develop a method to manufacture ultrastable vaccines by coating them with nanoparticles so that multiple doses can be delivered in a single injection to reduce the costs associated with repeat immunizations and vaccine refrigeration. They have developed a method to heat-stabilize vaccines for transport and storage that involves controlled freeze-drying of antigens with adjuvants embedded in glassy organic matrices. This mixture is then coated with defined atomic layers of aluminum and additional antigens to protect the vaccines and control the release of the primer and booster vaccine at different times. They will further develop these methods to produce single-shot formulations of selected viral antigens for release at defined times and test their stability and ability to trigger a protective immune response in mice.