Application of viral innate immune antagonists to improve vaccines

The goal is to improve vaccine efficacy by including viral innate immune antagonists that are co-expressed with the antigen vaccines, such as live attenuated pathogens, inactivated pathogens and subunit vaccines, are widespread used to protect humans and animals from infectious diseases. Recently, versatile vaccine platforms have been generated to be able to respond to newly emerging pathogens like the SARS-CoV-2. Among these platforms, many new vector vaccine technologies are safe by design but need improvements with regards to efficacy.

Here the aim is to generate vaccines in which an innate immune antagonist is co-expressed with the antigen to increase vaccine efficacy. These novel types of vaccines will be evaluated in a relevant chicken model, but the application of this technology may be much broader and encompass improved vaccines for use in other animals and humans.