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Project Summary

Novel vaccine platforms are urgently needed to produce efficacious, safe, low cost, and rapidly adaptable (‘plug-and-play’) vaccines to face the threat of zoonotic viral diseases in livestock. Protein nanoparticle vaccines, e.g. the highly successful porcine circovirus and the human papillomavirus vaccines, are generally considered an optimal vaccine format because of their high efficacy and intrinsic safety. Built on our success with clinical testing of a nanoparticle vaccine against covid-19 (H2020 Prevent-nCoV, clinical trial COUGH-1), the aim of the NanoZoo project is to apply our unique protein nanoparticle vaccine platform for rapid response against zoonotic viruses in poultry and swine.

his technology involves expression of viral antigens in insect cells combined with antigen presentation on protein nanoparticles to induce a superior immune response. In the NanoZoo project, this approach will be applied for developing novel vaccines against two important zoonotic viral diseases in poultry (Avian influenza virus and Newcastle disease virus) and two emerging vector-borne zoonotic viral diseases in swine (Japanese encephalitis virus and Getah virus). Viral glycoproteins, or immunodominant subunits thereof, will be expressed in insect cells using the robust baculovirus expression system to ensure correct folding and glycosylation of the antigen. The viral antigens will then be coupled onto self-adjuvanting protein nanoparticles to be evaluated in vaccination studies (with/without adjuvants) in relevant animal models (chicken and mice). The baculovirus expression system will be engineered as a very fast ‘plug-and-play’ platform to go in a single step from a synthetic gene to viral antigen production, which will outcompete novel mRNA vaccine platform technologies in terms of speed, volume and cost. The project brings together academic and industry experts in viral antigen expression, nanoparticle vaccines and animal health.