PAI LIFE SCIENCES INC — Department of Health and Human Services SBIR Phase I: NIAID

Description

An effective vaccine against HIV offers the best chance to stop the global epidemic but remains elusive to dateResearch has primarily focused on subunit monomerice ggpor gpor trimeric antigensthe former approachoften adjuvanted with alumhas failed in clinical trialsNative like trimers mimic the Env spike but are still poorly immunogenic and require elaborate adjuvant screening efforts to potentiate the immune responseVLPs are significantly more immunogenic but purification and scalability challengeswhich also apply to Env trimersplague their clinical translationRNA vaccines bypass the pitfalls of cell based expression systemsand importantlyoffer opportunities to innovate antigen design and stimulation mechanismsoreovernonviral delivery technologies are enabling RNA vaccines to enter clinical trials and demonstrate safety and efficacyPAI Life Sciences proposes to employ an exciting novel RNA deliveringadjuvanting nanoparticle formulation to deliver self replicating messages encoding HIVVLPsProposed activities includeidentifying lead RNA transcripts that produce HIVVLPs and induce broadly neutralizing antibodiesandelucidating immunological responses in rabbitsWe will conduct a mother to child transmissionMTCTstudy to demonstrate potential for a pediatric vaccinewhich will be crucial in stopping new HIV infections in infants