Awards

Satoshi Kashiwagi of Massachusetts General Hospital in the U.S. will test whether pre-treating the skin at the site of vaccination with an infrared laser light to stimulate antigen-presenting cells will result in a stronger immune response to the polio vaccination. The laser-based technology could reduce the number of vaccinations required to protect children from polio.

David Relman of Stanford University in the U.S. will work with collaborators to study the compositions of intestinal microbial communities in children given the oral polio vaccine (OPV). By identifying the gut microbial characteristics of those who display a low response to OPV, Relman and his team can identify predictors of response to the oral vaccine and target children who may need additional dosing and follow-up.

Anthony van den Pol of Yale University in the U.S. proposes to engineer a highly immunogenic virus to express replication-restricted poliovirus proteins for use in a new nasal spray polio vaccine. The spray will then be tested for its ability to generate a strong immune response against the virus and refined to increase its shelf life at room temperature.

Aurelius Wakube of Egerton University in Kenya will work to determine geographical patterns in the occurrence of polio cases in Kenya, develop models for predicting future patterns of the disease, and perform genetic typing of the polio strains found in Kenya in an effort to develop effective approaches for eradicating the disease in this country.

Francis Delpeyroux of the Institut Pasteur in France will research whether adding immune pressure against proteins found in the attenuated strains of the oral polio vaccine could lead to the emergence of recombinant circulating vaccine-derived polioviruses. Identifying this mechanism could help in development of better vaccines to control polio outbreaks.

Peter Vikesland of Virginia Polytechnical Institute in the U.S., along with Tamar Kohn of EPFL and Krista Wigginton of the University of Maryland, will develop a paper-based diagnostic in which inkjets imprint channels on paper to force water samples to detection zones where inkjet printer-embedded nanoparticles react to the presence of different poliovirus strains. This low-cost device could be used for point-of-use poliovirus screening.

Minetaro Arita of the National Institute of Infectious Diseases in Japan will develop a diagnostics platform to detect and characterize poliovirus from a stool sample. A soluble poliovirus receptor and magnetic beads will work together to concentrate the virus in a diagnostic tool and allow for not only detection but also differentiation of strains.

Mark Prausnitz of Georgia Institute of Technology and Steve Oberste of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the U.S. will test the feasibility of using microneedle patches to deliver the inactivated polio vaccine (IPV) instead of using intramuscular vaccine shots. This new method is designed to lower the required dose, simplify vaccination procedures, and eliminate dangers associated with hypodermic needles.

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. In Phase I, they sequenced and compared the genomes of different types of VDPVs that have emerged in China to determine how the virus arises and circulates in the population. In Phase II, they will sequence more VDPVs and look for so-called mutation hotspots in the genome, which could lead to a safer and more effective vaccine.

Peter Nara of Biological Mimetics, Inc. in the U.S. will use a new vaccine technology to produce non-infectious poliovirus-like particles that can be used in one highly effective, low-cost polio vaccine capable of inducing protective immunity against all circulating serotypes.