Vaccine Adjuvants

Scope

The vaccine adjuvants program aims to utilise insights in humoral and cellular immunology and cytokine biology to develop better vaccine adjuvants using and vaccine delivery systems, for human and veterinary applications.

Research outline

Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective procedures to improve the health of animals and humans. This strategy is widely used in the control of major human and veterinary diseases and has lead to the first complete eradication of a human disease. Yet there are still a large number of infectious diseases in both humans and veterinary species for which no vaccine is available. Many of these have good prospects for vaccine development as protective immunity can be developed after recovering from the disease.

ISCOM Adjuvants

Phil Sutton and Jean-Pierre Scheerlinck

Adjuvants are an important part of any vaccine allowing to modulate the immune response induced to the vaccine antigen. In collaboration with CSL Ltd we are investigating the immunological properties of ISCOM adjuvants in sheep.

ISCOM as seen by electronmicroscopy. The antigen associated to the ISCOM has been made visible using an immunogold staining technique.

Key publications

• Scheerlinck J-P. Y., J. L.K. Wee, K. J Snibson, S. Edwards, M. Pearse, C. Quinn and P. Sutton (2008) Pulmonary delivery of ISCOMATRIXTM influenza vaccine induces both systemic and mucosal immunity with antigen dose sparing. Mucosal Immunol 1, 489-496.
• Skene C & Sutton P. (2006) Saponin-adjuvanted particulate vaccines for clinical use. Methods 40(1):53-9.
• Scheerlinck J-P. Y., S. Gekas, H-H. Yen, S. Edwards, M. Pearse, A. Coulter and P. Sutton (2006). Draining immune response following nasal delivery of an adjuvanted influenza vaccine. Vaccine 24: 3929-3936
• Windon R., P. J. Chaplin, L. Beezum, A. Coulter, R. Cahill, W. Kimpton, A. Sjölander, D. Drane, J. Tennent and J-P. Y. Scheerlinck (2000). Induction of lymphocyte recruitment in the absence of a detectable immune response. Vaccine 19(4-5): 572-578.
• Sjölander A., D. Drane, E. Maraskovsky, J.-P. Scheerlinck, A. Suhrbier, J. Tennent and M. Pearse (2001). Cellular immune responses to ISCOM Formulations in Animal and Primate Models. Vaccine 19(17-19): 2661-2665.
• Windon R., P. J. Chaplin, P. McWaters, M. Tavarnesi, M. Tzatzaris, W. G. Kimpton, R. N. P. Cahill, L. Beezum, A. Coulter, D. Drane, A. Sjölander, M. Pearse, J.-P. Y. Scheerlinck and J. Tennent (2001). Local immune responses to influenza antigen are synergistically enhanced by the adjuvant ISCOMATRIX. Vaccine 20(3-4): 490-497.

Nano-beads Adjuvants

Jean-Pierre Scheerlinck

In collaboration with Panvax Ltd, we are investigatig the properties of novel nano-beads adjuvants. These nano-beads are small inert particles that induce strong induce strong immune responses in both mice and sheep. Using afferent lymphatic cannulation we study the interactions between this adjuvant and dendritic cells as they migrate from the site of injection to the local lymph node. These cells a a key component for the induction of immune responses.

Antigen presenting dendritic cell—the first step in the initiation of an immune response.

Key publications

• Scheerlinck J-P. Y. and. D. L. V. Greenwood (2008). Virus-sized vaccine delivery systems. Drug Discovery Today 13, 882-887
• Scheerlinck J-P. Y., S. Gloster, A. Gamvrellis, P. L. Mottram and M. Plebanski (2006). Systemic immune responses in sheep, induced by a novel nano-bead adjuvant. Vaccine 24: 1124-1131
• Yen H-H., J-P. Y. Scheerlinck, S. Gekas and P. Sutton (2006) A Sheep Cannulation Model for Evaluation of Nasal Vaccine Delivery. Methods 38: 117-123