Development of proprietary bacteriophage Qbeta as a vaccine carrier platform for anti-salmonella vaccine

Project summary Vaccines have saved millions of lives. However, there are many diseases against which vaccines are not yet available, with the current COVID-19 pandemic in the world serving as a painful reminder of the need for vaccines against emerging diseases. With the growing emphasis on vaccine safety, next-generation vaccine designs have been increasingly focusing on subunit antigens. Because subunit epitopes tend to have lower immunogenicity, immunogenic carriers are critical to deliver the desired antigen to the immune system and to enhance the immune responses. However, there are very few carriers available that have been validated in clinical studies. In this SBIR phase I project, Iaso Therapeutics, Inc. will focus on the development of a proprietary bacteriophage mutant Qβ (mQβ) virus like particle as a platform technology for conjugate vaccines. In aim 1, robust protocols will be established for expression, purification, and long-term storage of mQβ. In addition, head to head comparison will be performed to demonstrate that mQβ can elicit higher levels of antibodies as compared to current benchmark carriers. In aim 2, the powerful mQβ platform will be applied to deliver Salmonella associated glycans as potential vaccines against multiple strains of common pathogenic Salmonella. The vaccine will be optimized to enhance protection from Salmonella infection. When successfully developed, this project will establish mQβ as an attractive immunogenic carrier for vaccine development and provide important pre-clinical data for anti-Salmonella vaccines.