A needle-free vaccine platform that elicits a robust immune response against a wide array of viruses and bacteria has been awarded a U.S. patent. The University of Michigan holds the patent and NanoBio Corporation, a spin-off from the university, licenses the patent and its associated technology.
The intranasal vaccines, produced using NanoBio's nanoemulsion technology, have elicited a dramatic immune response in animals vaccinated against influenza, anthrax, hepatitis B and other diseases. In some cases, the immune response is exponentially higher than what is required to provide adequate protection against infection. Such dramatic levels of immunity would confer significantly higher levels of protection to the vaccinated population at large compared with current injectable vaccines.
Because the vaccines trigger such robust immunity, scientists anticipate they will be able to reduce vaccine antigen quantities to a fraction of what current vaccines require, while still mounting an overwhelming immune response.
This "antigen-sparing" capability would enable scientists to rapidly produce large quantities of vaccines using miniscule amounts of antigen, a critical factor when faced with a disease pandemic or biological warfare.
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