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Newsletter May 2016

AditecProject

A shot in the arm for vaccine research

Published by the European Commission and features on their website

The European Commission highlights the ADITEC project as a success story of EC funded projects. The article, published on the European Commission website, draws attention to the unique way that ADITEC looks into how vaccines work and how vaccination strategies can be improved.

Specific results so far, such as novel immunisation technologies, adjuvants, vectors and delivery systems, optimised formulations and vaccination methods for different age groups, all come together in a toolbox enabling the best possible insight into fighting diseases.

The EU-funded project is contributing to possible international regulation and standards for these novel technologies. Along with regularly setting up and running European training programmes, ADITEC has also created synergies and cross-fertilisation between research areas that have the potential to fill existing gaps and advance this knowledge well into the future.

“This is a high-impact project,” says the project’s scientific coordinator, Donata Medaglini of Italy’s Università di Siena and the Sclavo Vaccines Association.“We have built something that is really working. New technologies, along with efficient management and governance, can effectively advance these innovations to the clinic and make a real difference for future health.”
Read the whole article on the website of the EC.

ADITEC applies for the first time the ‘system vaccinology’ approach to studying immunity to influenza vaccination in 14-24 month old children

Published in PNAS (doi: 10.1073)

A commentary has been published in PNAS entitled ‘Systems vaccinology informs influenza vaccine immunogenicity’, in support of the paper published by ADITEC partners (January 2016), ‘Systems biology of immunity to MF59 adjuvanted versus nonadjuvanted trivalent seasonal influenza vaccines in early childhood’ that reveals important new insights into the dynamics of the innate and adaptive responses to vaccination in early childhood’, which featured in the ADITEC newsletter of January 2016.

Read the commentary in full:
Systems vaccinology informs influenza vaccine immunogenicity.
García-Sastre A.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Feb 16;113(7):1689-91. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1525361113. Epub 2016 Feb 3

Read the paper in full:
Systems biology of immunity to MF59-adjuvanted versus non-adjuvanted trivalent seasonal influenza vaccines in early childhood
Helder I Nakaya, Elizabetth Clutterbuck, Dmitri Kazmin, Lili Wang, Mario Cortese, Steven E Bosinger, Nirav B, Patel, Daniel E Zak, Alan Aderem, Tao Dong, Giuseppe Del Giudice, Rino Rappuoli , Vincenzo Cerundolo, Andrew J Pollard, Bali Pulendran, Claire-Anne Siegrist.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2016 Feb 16;113(7):1853-8. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1519690113. Epub 2016 Jan 11.

ADITEC, for the first time conducted head to head comparison of most important vaccine adjuvants

Published in Nature Scientific Reports (doi: 10.1038)

This is the first extensive attempt to categorize clinical-grade adjuvants based on their immune profiles and protective efficacy to inform a rational development of next generation vaccines for human use. Within the ADITEC project several partners collaborated in this joint effort.

The majority of vaccine candidates in clinical development are highly purified proteins and peptides relying on adjuvants to enhance and/or direct immune responses. ADITEC performed a head-to-head comparison of five different adjuvants Alum, MF59®, GLA-SE, IC31® and CAF01 in mice and combined these with antigens from M. tuberculosis, influenza, and chlamydia to test immune-profiles and efficacy in infection models using standardized protocols. Regardless of antigen, each adjuvant had a unique immunological signature suggesting that the adjuvants have potential for different disease targets.

Different human vaccine adjuvants promote distinct antigen-independent immunological signatures tailored to different pathogens
Niels Peter H. Knudsen, Anja Olsen, Cecilia Buonsanti, Frank Follmann, Yuan Zhang, Rhea N. Coler, Christopher B. Fox, Andreas Meinke, Ugo D´Oro, Daniele Casini, Alessandra Bonci, Rolf Billeskov, Ennio De Gregorio, Rino Rappuoli, Ali M. Harandi, Peter Andersen & Else Marie Agger
Nature Scientific Reports 21 January 2016, doi:10.1038/srep19570

Reverse Vaccinology 2.0: Human immunology instructs vaccine antigen design

Published in JEM, Journal of Experimental Medicine (doi: 10.1084)

We are entering a “reverse vaccinology 2.0” era. This manuscript acknowledges the ADITEC effort in the field.

Traditionally, vaccines have been developed by cultivating infectious agents and isolating the inactivated whole pathogen or some of its purified components. 20 years ago, reverse vaccinology enabled vaccine discovery and design based on information deriving from the sequence of microbial genomes rather than via the growth of pathogens. Today, the high throughput discovery of protective human antibodies, sequencing of the B cell repertoire, and the increasing structural characterization of protective antigens and epitopes provide the molecular and mechanistic understanding to drive the discovery of novel vaccines that were previously impossible.

Read the paper in full:
Reverse vaccinology 2.0: Human immunology instructs vaccine antigen design.
Rappuoli R, Bottomley MJ, D’Oro U, Finco O, De Gregorio E.
J Exp Med. 2016 Apr 4;213(4):469-81. doi: 10.1084/jem.20151960. Epub 2016 Mar 28.

Three proposals for fourth round commissioned research awarded

In October 2015 ADITEC launched the fourth call for commissioned research support for SMEs and PHOs. Six proposal were received and  reviewed by the  Steering Committee. The following 3 proposals were selected for ADITEC support:

  • Safe outer membrane vesicle vaccines against TB and Chlamydia by Abera Bioscience AB
  • iParticles pre-clinical Evaluation by Adjutavis
  • A novel platform for dermal vaccination using nanoporous microneedle arrays by MyLife Technologies BV.

The 5th ADITEC call for EC Funded Commissioned Research for SMEs and PublicHealth has now been launched. Deadline for applications was 6th May 2016. Read more.

Upcoming interesting CONFERENCES are:

Upcoming interesting COURSES are:

Recent publications

Great progress has been made in the first four years of the project as shown by the 168  publications that have appeared in 74 different peer reviewed journals.
This is the list with recent publications with the acknowledgement to the ADITEC project:

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