'Designer' Inorganic Vaccine Adjuvants

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Effective vaccines need to contain both an antigen, e.g. a viral, microbial or tumour component, and crucially an adjuvant. The role of a vaccine adjuvant is to reproduce or mimic the ‘danger signals‘ that naturally trigger immune responses and so enhance the efficiently of the vaccine. Very few vaccine adjuvants are currently licensed for human use, they are poorly understood mixtures of aluminium and magnesium salts, and it appears that even the most basic understanding of the chemistry of these materials is almost totally lacking. This research grant application proposes to study carefully prepared pure inorganic compounds with well defined composition, size and shape so that we can begin to unravel the chemical and structure factors that affect the efficient of vaccine adjuvants. If successful, this project will offer the exciting possibility of creating the next generation of effective, safe and cheap inorganic adjuvants for global use in vaccination.