Role in the TRANSVAC project The HZI will provide expertise and technologies for adjuvants and the preclinical validation of vaccine technologies and candidates in murine systems. The HZI will develop a vaccination protocol for mucosal administration based on three novel strategies: (i) development and optimization of a vaccination protocol in which parenterally-primed T and B cells are subsequently pulled into the mucosa by the local delivery of the cognate antigen to the requested effector site, (ii) testing the co-administration of antigens with novel mucosal adjuvants using different mucosal immunisation routes and schedules, and (iii) testing various nanoparticles co-administered with different immunomodulators for their ability to generate both systemic and mucosal immune responses following transcutaneous/trans-follicular vaccination. Selected mucosal vaccine candidates as well as additional novel adjuvant formulations will be tested for immunogenicity in mice. Furthermore, the mode of action of different adjuvant and antigen formulations will be studied, with the overall aim to develop adjuvant formulations ready for pre-clinical and ultimately clinical development. The HZI will also not only perform experiments to compare the predictive immunogenicity and efficacy of vaccines between different model species and humans but will test comparative effects of adjuvants. Finally, the HZI will help develop in vivo imaging technologies to characterize (i) vaccine biodistribution and persistence, and (ii) cellular and molecular changes at the injection site and in draining lymphoid tissues, helping to refine the use of animal models.
The Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research is also involved in the SCORE project; Forschungszentrum Jülich is involved in the Exscalate4CoV project. "SCORE" is intended to develop antiviral drugs that can be used in the short to medium term to treat patients and contain the spread of coronaviruses. The "Exscalate" platform is already aiming to use supercomputing resources and link them with life science research laboratories in order to respond more quickly and efficiently to international pandemics. The project is now being expanded to include COVID-19; this also involves the identification of active substances against the virus.
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