Madison Seefeld
Hitchhiking Across the Nose’s Mucosal Lining to Improve Vaccines
Summary
Vaccines administered through the nose via mist are an appealing alternative to injection-based vaccines and could better protect against respiratory pathogens. However, the mucosal lining in the nose limits the uptake of vaccine components. To combat this challenge, my lab is engineering vaccines that hitchhike on the body’s natural transport system to cross mucosal barriers. Vaccines train the immune system to recognize antigen, the component of the pathogen the immune system responds to during natural infection. Pre-exposing the body to antigen allows the immune system to respond more rapidly to that pathogen in future infections. We will link our vaccine antigen to albumin, one of the most abundant proteins in the body, so that it can hitchhike across mucosal barriers, overcoming the challenge of uptake. I will study how the location of our antigen impacts the immune response after mucosal vaccination and apply this platform to other diseases.
I am incredibly honored to have been chosen as a recipient of the PhRMA Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship in Drug Delivery. Not only will this award provide valuable funding, but it will also connect me with other scientists conducting groundbreaking research in drug delivery. I am excited to use this fellowship to continue my work on albumin hitch-hiking intranasal vaccines for better uptake and protection against infectious diseases.
