Brittany Hartwell, PhD

To combat infectious threats like HIV, SARS-CoV-2, and influenza, vaccines are needed that trigger immune protection in places like the nose, where pathogens enter the body. While traditional injected vaccines are effective at activating “backup” defenses in the blood, they do not typically activate robust “frontline” defenses in mucosal tissues where transmission takes place. Vaccinating directly at mucosal surfaces — for example, through the nose — can promote mucosal immunity. However, vaccine delivery across mucosal barriers is challenging because they are very good at keeping most vaccine components out. Yet the naturally occurring protein albumin is known to be very good at getting in. Albumin, a major blood protein also found in mucosal fluids, is shuttled across mucosal barrier tissues by binding a receptor on its surface. Exploiting this biology, my lab is developing intranasal vaccines that ‘hitchhike’ on albumin to deliver immune cargo in the nose to activate frontline mucosal immunity against infections like COVID and influenza. We hope this engineering strategy of hitchhiking to bypass mucosal barriers will result in delivery of vaccines that are safer and more effective at protecting against infectious diseases.