Emerging Infectious Diseases

Development of vaccines for effective control of bacterial, viral and protozoal pathogens represents an important development in reducing host morbidity and mortality worldwide. Advancements in the area of biotechnology have increased our innovative potential and allow us to use these technologies to design advanced pathogen control strategies. My laboratory has been working to develop a novel vaccine platform that can provide distinct advantages over traditional classical vaccines. Notably, traditional vaccines tend to be strain or serotype specific and show little or no cross protection to even genetically related strains, our new vaccine technology focuses on creating a single vaccine to protect against multiple serotypes or strains from the same pathogen family by incorporating a single common subunit, produced by bacillus subtilis, into an inactivated orally administered vaccine platform, providing protection against infection and disease by inducing mucosal immunity.
 

This immunity has proved to be protective against families of pathogens regardless of host species; therefore, our platform not only protects against families of pathogens with a single subunit it furthermore protects multiple host species with the same vaccine. Additionally, the platform integrates additional molecules that can train the immune system or reprogram the pathogen favored immune responses that have previously been pre-trained by host-pathogen interactions, driving the immune response toward host favored protection. An additional distinct advantage of this novel platform is the allowance for immunological differentiation of infected from vaccinated host. Which should prove even more important in the face of emerging diseases, such as SARS-CoV-2? Numerous experimental vaccine challenge trials have been conducted to date in multiple host species utilizing this vaccine platform. The platform has shown efficacy and protection (short term and long term) against bacterial, viral and protozoal pathogens alike. Our ultimate goal of creating a single vaccine for multiple hosts against families of pathogens is advancing the “one health” concept towards a tangible reality today.