SmartVaccines · Smart Vaccine Depots

Vaccinations are a highly efficient and effective means for protecting humans and animals against severe diseases. For reaching an initial protective immune response, the vaccine must repeatedly be administered, mainly by injection. Omitting the repeated vaccine injections either due to the unavailability of medical personnel (mainly in developing countries) or due to negligence results in insufficient protection and susceptibility to disease.One solution for overcoming this lack in protection would be a vaccination strategy avoiding the need for additional appointments with medical personnel. This could be realized by the use of a vaccine depot that is injected together with the first vaccine dose. At a preset time point the patient would simply swallow a pill containing a trigger substance that would subsequently induce the release of the vaccine from the depot and induce the subsequent protection of the patient.In this project we will perform the proof of concept for the functionality of such a depot in animal models using vaccines against widespread infectious diseases like hepatitis B or human papilloma virus.With this study we aim at demonstrating the proof of concept that our newly developed materials can be applied to increase the patient compliance of vaccinations and thereby to increase the vaccination success rate. As our approach is likely generically applicable to different vaccines, we anticipate a highly attractive economical potential in the human medical and the veterinary fields. The scientific data obtained in this project together with a comprehensive market research and the development of a business strategy will shape a highly attractive commercial proposition for the successful valorization of our current ERC-funded research.