COVID-19: Understanding a 2GEN Therapeutic DNA vaccine: Pseudovirions for immune response against Covid
EMSL Project ID
51518
Abstract
Combating COVID-19 at the global scale will require a fast deployment of an effective and safe vaccine. DNA vaccines were discovered 30+ years ago and have proved they can elicit an immune response when plasmid DNA encoding antigen is injected into a muscle or tissue. The inherent safety, speed of development and ease of production and handling offer an exciting path especially for ultra-rapid candidate development. However, in the past complexity of development limited expression to a single antigen in many prototypes. In silico nucleotide manipulation opened an opportunity to increase the complexity of DNA vaccines at the exponential pace. The external PIs, Brian Hanley (Butterfly Sciences) and Pavlo Rudenko (TriboTEX) developed a set of 2GEN vaccine candidates intended to replicate the shell of a virus structurally, including Ebola and EEEV. In addition, co-expression of adjuvants or immune system stimulators to be packaged inside pseudovirion should further stimulate an immune system response. Since SARS-COV-2 virus inhibit immune system response with nsp1protein, the vaccine should invoke an earlier response and be safe to use with immunocompromised people or people with ongoing infection. PIs will send the proteins assemblies, to resemble a shell of the SARS CoV-2. They will require TEM imaging of these products to determine their ultrastructure, whether the shell assembly is forming, for the structure-function prediction. We consulted the workflow with Dr. Dohnalkova, and the method of high resolution CryoTEM with a negative stain should provide the anticipated images of our constructs.
Project Details
Project type
Limited Scope
Start Date
2020-08-12
End Date
2021-07-07
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
Principal Investigator