August. April 4, 2022 – Most vaccines are not one-time deals. Over time, you’ll need a range of boosters to boost your immunity to COVID-19, tetanus, and other infectious threats. This can mean multiple visits with healthcare providers that cost you time and sometimes money.
But what if you only get one injection that can self-enhance when you need extra protection?
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed microparticles that can be used to create self-enhancing vaccines that deliver their contents at carefully set time points. In a new study published in the journal Science Advances, scientists describe how they tune the particles to release their cargo at the right time, and provide insights on how to keep the particles It was stable until then.
How Self-Boosting Vaccines Work
The team has developed tiny particles that look like coffee cups – except for your favorite beer, they’re filled with vaccines.
“You can put the cap on and inject it into the body, and once the cap breaks, whatever is inside is released,” said study author, MIT Koch Integrative Cancer Research Institute research scientist Dr. Ana Jaklenec said the study.
To make the miniature cups, the researchers used various polymers (synthetic plastic-like materials) already used in medical applications, such as dissolvable sutures. They then filled cups with dried vaccine material and mixed it with sugar and other stabilizers.
Particles can be made into various shapes and fine-tuned using polymers with different properties. Some polymers last longer in the body than others, so their choice helps determine how long everything stays stable under the skin after your injection and when the particles release their cargo. It may be days or months after the injection.
One challenge is that as the particles open up, the environment around them becomes more acidic. The team is investigating ways to suppress this acidity to make the vaccine material more stable.
“Our ongoing research has yielded some very, very exciting results regarding its stability and shows that you’re able to maintain a very sensitive vaccine and maintain a very stable over time,” said study author Morteza Sarmadi, Ph.D., research specialist at the Koch Institute.
This study, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, begins with
” The purpose is actually to help people in developing countries, because a lot of times, people don’t come back for a second injection,” said study author Robert Langer, ScD, professor at the David H. Koch Institute at MIT.
But one-off programs can also benefit developed countries. One reason is that self-boosting vaccines can help vaccinated people achieve higher antibody responses than they would with just one dose of the vaccine. This could mean more protection for individuals and populations, as there may be less chance for bacteria to evolve and spread as people become more immune.
With COVID-19 Pandemic as an example. Only 67% of Americans are fully vaccinated, and the majority of those eligible for the first and second booster immunizations are not. New variants, such as the recent Omicron variant, continue to emerge and get infected.
“I thought that if everyone had been vaccinated first then the chances of these variants would have been greatly reduced and time had been repeated, but they didn’t,” Lange said. Say.
Self-boosting vaccines can also benefit infants, injection-feared children, and older adults with limited access to healthcare.
Also, since the vaccine material is encapsulated And with staggered releases, this technology may help people get multiple vaccines at the same time, which now have to be administered separately.
What happens next What
team is testing self-enhancing polio and hepatitis vaccine in non-human primates. May be in health in coming years Small trials in humans.
“We think the potential of this technology is very high, and we hope that it can be developed and enter the human stage very soon,” Jaklenec said.
In smaller animal models, they are exploring the potential of self-enhancing mRNA vaccines. They are also working with HIV vaccines collaboration of scientists.
“There’s been some progress recently, very sophisticated schemes seem to be working, but they’re not practical,” Jaklenec said. “So, that’s where this particular technique might be useful. , because you have to start and boost with different things, which allows you to do that.”
The system can also go beyond vaccines and can be used to provide cancer treatment, Hormones and Biologics.
Through new work with researchers at Georgia Tech, the team will investigate the potential to deliver self-healing booster vaccinations through 3D-printed microneedles. These vaccines can stick to your skin like a bandage, self-administer and deploy globally in response to local outbreaks.
