Eurostars Project E! 11019 OptiFemVac, Abera Bioscience AB
| Reference number | |
| Coordinator | Abera Bioscience AB |
| Funding from Vinnova | SEK 2 351 980 |
| Project duration | April 2017 - March 2020 |
| Status | Completed |
| Venture | Eurostars |
Purpose and goal
The purpose was to engineer bacterial outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) into a versatile and modular platform for recombinant vaccine development. Technology was developped to couple high amounts of antigenic proteins to OMV particles and vaccine candidates against either Zika virus or Humano papiloma virus (HPV)-placental malaria (PM) were produced as proof-of-concept. Animal studies showed successful induction of anti-viral antibodies and inhibition of malaria binding to red blood cells. Follow-up studies will demonstrate the full potential of the OMV vaccine prototypes.
Expected results and effects
In addition to vaccine prototypes against Zika and HPV-malaria infections, the project yielded a broadly applicable platform for the development recombinant OMV-based vaccines. Combined use of different versions of Tag/Catcher technology allows for the coupling of multiple different antigens from any source at a single OMV particle. This feature can be exploited to develop multivalent OMV-based vaccines, not only against viruses and parasites, but also against bacteria and even cancer.
Planned approach and implementation
The research was carried out in the context of Eurostars project OptiFemVac with partners Expres2ion (Zika antigen development), University of Copenhagen (HPV-malaria, immunogenicity testing) and La Jolla Institute of Immunology (Zika mouse model). The collaboration was very fruitful and allowed us to gain invaluable proof of concept data for the OMV-based vaccination platform that was developed in the course of the project.