Synthetic Alphavirus-Like Vesicles as Alternative Antigen Delivery Platforms

Brandon Wilder with Daniel Streblow, both of Oregon Health and Science University in the U.S., will develop a vaccine platform based on virus-like vesicles (VLVs) as a vaccine vector that can be launched in vivo from nucleic acids and express proteins that elicit cellular and humoral immunity. They will optimize in vitro-generated VLVs for expression of an established Plasmodium berghei antigen and for immunogenicity in a mouse model of malaria. They will then vaccinate mice with gene gun-delivered, optimized plasmid DNA to demonstrate that VLVs can be generated in vivo, to assess their persistence and tissue distribution, and to test whether immunity can be boosted by a second vaccination.