Sanquin Blood Supply Foundation, the Netherlands Cancer Institute, and the Netherlands Vaccine Institute announce today the launch of their joint AmpVacs project aiming at the development of a broadly protective synthetic influenza A vaccine component that in combination with classical antibody-stimulating vaccines will induce protection against future influenza A threats.
The preclinical research phase of the project is funded by the Joint Call initiative of the three Dutch Public Private Partnerships, the BioMedical Materials (BMM) program, the Centre for Translational Molecular Medicine (CTMM) and Top Institute Pharma (TI Pharma), focussing on the interface of the three institutes: Imaging Guided and Targeted Drug Delivery. Fifty percent of the total funding budget of 4.2 million euro is provided by the Dutch government, with the remaining fifty percent being provided by the consortium partners.
Influenza A infections remain a substantial health threat, as revealed by the significant annual influenza A-related morbidity and mortality. Both the preparation for influenza A pandemic and the consequences of such a pandemic when manifested cause substantial socio-economical costs. Protection afforded by traditional influenza A vaccines is mediated in large part by antibodies. In contrast, induction of cytotoxic T cells, the other effector arm of the adaptive immune system is highly inefficient. Notably, efficient induction of cytotoxic T cell responses would be highly attractive, as contrary to the molecular structures recognized by antibodies, the structures recognized by cytotoxic T cells are in large part conserved between different influenza A subtypes.
Based on this notion and the proven protective effect of cytotoxic T cells on influenza A infection in preclinical models, the AmpVacs Vaccine consortium will develop an innovative fully synthetic influenza A vaccine component. To achieve this aim, the consortium will build on in-house technologies developed by the partners. Specifically, the consortium will make use of T cell imaging technology developed by one of the partners for the generation of a database of T cell epitopes. This database will then be utilized for the development and evaluation of a fully synthetic influenza A vaccine component, using specific formulation technology of the partners. Thus, the central aim of the consortium is to develop a broadly protective synthetic influenza A vaccine component that in combination with classical antibody-stimulating vaccines will induce protection against future influenza A threats. Notably, the development of the multiplexed T cell imaging technology for the diagnostics of human immune function that this project will achieve will form a major fringe benefit of the project that will be of broad value for future vaccine design.
T cells can completely prevent viral infections in humans