Vaccines


Given today's heightened regulatory scrutiny for adverse side effects, industrial vaccine development currently faces the impossible task of making vaccines simultaneously immunogenic and therefore effective yet with fewer adverse effects. Unfortunately, accomplishing the latter by switching from whole cell to subunit or antigen component vaccines comes at the expense of the former.

Prevailing dogma dictates that plugging this predictable deficiency entails adding adjuvants to more effectively engage the innate arm of the immune system. However, knowing little of how adjuvants actually work makes their boosting potential as well as safety unpredictable.

Problem is compounded by the fact that old generation whole cell vaccines already effectively protect against naturally self-limiting acute infections such as measles and yellow fever while existing vaccine need is against chronic infections such as malaria, tuberculosis, HIV.

At Tregeutix we are developing a novel discovery framework dubbed SPIRAL that reveals how “holes” in Treg repertoire specific for antigens cross-reactive between microbiota and natural infection or vaccines undermine effective immune response to the latter.

vaccines

Analysis of available antigen data through SPIRAL allows systematic discovery of specific microbiota species and candidate antigens most likely to promote effective but safe immune response following vaccination, a necessary condition for control of natural infections.