recombinant overlapping peptide vaccines for infectious disease and cancer - Isis Project No 2452

Research at the University of Oxford has led to a new approach to generating effective vaccines quickly and inexpensively in response to the emergence of new pathogens.

Background and Market Opportunity

A key challenge facing human health is that of rapid generation of new vaccines effective against multiple strains of human pathogens. In particular, the threat of pandemic influenza increases the need to minimise the time between emergence of a new variant pathogen and supply of an efficacious prophylactic vaccine.  A need also exists for vaccines able to stimulate cellular immunity, which is believed to be important in mounting a protective immune response against many pathogens and cancers.

The Oxford Invention     

The inventor has shown previously that administration of a pool of synthetic, overlapping peptides (OPs) relating to a particular disease-associated protein can generate strong cellular immune responses in vivo. By using such a pool of peptides it is possible to cover multiple epitopes, which overcomes problems associated with HLA restriction. Furthermore, time-consuming epitope mapping is not required, which reduces the time taken to produce an effective vaccine.

However, despite advances in solid-phase methods, use of synthetic peptides can be less than ideal in terms of the large-scale manufacturing required for many infectious disease vaccines. The Oxford researcher has addressed this problem by developing a recombinant method for producing OP vaccines. This approach involves bacterial expression of an amino acid sequence corresponding to OP sequences spanning the length of a protein of interest, interspersed with enzymatic cleavage sites. The recombinant product can then be digested either in vitro, or, if cleavage sites for enzymes present in human cells are chosen, in vivo.

Proof of concept has been achieved with adjuvanted OPs to HIV-Nef protein able to induce specific cellular immune responses in 2 strains of mice. Vaccination with OPs was also able to protect mice from high dose viral challenge of vaccinia virus expressing HIV-Nef. Further in vivo studies with additional antigens are anticipated.

Commercial Opportunity

Isis would like to talk to companies interested in further developing this patented technology, which could be applied as a platform for creation of prophylactic and therapeutic vaccines for a wide range of diseases.

Request Further Information: Project Number 2452 Recombinant Overlapping Peptide Vaccines for Infectious Disease and Cancer