Project description
Tracking vaccine-mediated mechanisms of protection
Undoubtedly, vaccination has successfully reduced the burden of many infectious diseases. Despite the increasing safety of vaccines, there is still room for improving efficacy and reducing cost. With this in mind, scientists of the EU-funded VacTrack project are investigating the mechanism of protection conferred by recent particle-based vaccines. Using pneumococcal antigens grafted to outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) as a model formulation, the project will study how these vaccines work inside the host and unveil the associated changes in gene expression. VacTrack holds great potential at directing vaccine research down unexplored paths and advancing existing vaccines towards safer and more efficacious formulations.
Objective
Despite successful reduction of the burden of many infectious diseases by vaccination and the strong improvement of vaccine safety, there is a strong need to improve existing vaccines and to develop new affordable vaccines with greater efficacy. Particle-based vaccines are one of the recent advances, with potentially a promising impact on global public health. Besides being investigated for their protective potential, the knowledge about their mechanism of protection is still scarce. VacTrack is designed to investigate this by innovatively combining state of the art in vivo imaging with global transcriptome analyses. I aim to dissect the route vaccines acquire inside the host along with the spatio-temporal changes in gene expression following vaccine exposure to the host, by utilizing pneumococcal antigens grafted to outer membrane vesicles (OMVs) as model formulations in imaging-assisted in vivo mouse vaccination and challenge infection models. VacTrack is expected to generate insights about novel pathways triggered in host following vaccination which will be further validated by an ex vivo approach via stimulation of murine and human whole blood. By exploiting systems biology, high resolution in vivo imaging and immunological approaches VacTrack will provide a blue print for the approach to study mechanism of protection of vaccines in general. Comprehension of correlates of protection by combining in vivo and ex vivo analyses will 1) help devise new pneumococcal vaccines, 2) improve existing vaccine formulations, 3) transform the direction of vaccine research by allowing targeting of specific novel pathways identified via VacTrack. Taken together, this proposal holds great potential in advancing the vaccine research to devise new and better vaccines to save and improve human lives on a global level.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics RNA transcriptomes
- medical and health sciences basic medicine pharmacology and pharmacy pharmaceutical drugs vaccines
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
6525 GA NIJMEGEN
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.