Antibody-guided design of multivalent nanoparticle vaccines against antibiotic-resistant bacteria

The global emergence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing concern that has sparked the search for alternative approaches to treat bacterial infections. Vaccination is widely considered to be the most effective single measure to protect populations against transmissible diseases without promoting AMR.

However, to date, there are very few vaccines against bacteria in general and in particular against AMR priority bacteria.The aim of this proposal is to design, produce, test, and protect multivalent nanoparticle vaccines against bacteria. The project is intended to prove three important concepts that could have significant implications for the development of new vaccines against AMR bacteria. The concepts are: 1) that the use of nanoparticles will elicit a significantly stronger immune response and a flexible way of designing multivalent vaccines, 2) that multivalent vaccines will significantly improve the level, persistence and range of protection and, in addition, counteract escape mutants and, 3) circulating antibody repertoire sequencing will generate molecular correlates of protection that can be used to understand the properties of a protective immune response.
The work holds the potential to demonstrate important generalizable concepts for vaccine development against bacteria and to generate new IP that can be used to explore the possibility of commercialization and conducting future human trials.