VaccineDisc

In the 1950s, the first nationwide vaccination programs led to significant advances in healthcare, as deadly childhood diseases such as diphtheria and polio were largely eradicated. Modern vaccination programs are estimated to save 2-3 million lives annually. Despite technological advances in vaccine development, such as the development of novel mRNA vaccines, challenges remain. For example, the development of vaccines against pathogens that are difficult to address (e.g., tuberculosis) or pathogens with high diversity (e.g., influenza) often fails at an early stage. In addition, most vaccines are administered to children, but current research focuses primarily on older adults. Studies in children are often difficult to conduct and new target structures for potential vaccines are hard to find.

The aim of the VaccineDisc project is therefore to research the immune response to new vaccines, particularly in children and adolescents, in order to improve the predictive accuracy of vaccine efficacy. To this end, an automated testing platform is being developed to examine individual vaccine responses using human tissue models. This will be linked to a new real-time monitoring method that enables continuous recording of vaccine reactions. To achieve the project goal, various methods from microsystems technology and tissue engineering will be combined with imaging and protein detection methods.

Finally, the developed approach will be validated using a vaccine case study. For this purpose, various vaccines will be tested on the platform to predict the vaccine response in children and adolescents.

Partner:

Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen