Development of Safe and Effective Near-infrared Laser System Adjuvanting Intradermal Vaccines

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Summary

The objective of this project is to augment the effectiveness of vaccines without the use of chemical or biological vaccine adjuvants. The vaccine adjuvant is an essential component for most of modern vaccines to be effective. However, there is a paucity of both safe and effective vaccine adjuvant. We will address this issue by demonstrating the feasibility for laser-based vaccine adjuvant to enhance immune responses. A number of researchers have reported that a new way to enhance the efficacy of vaccines is to pre-treat the skin with a brief exposure to a non-damaging laser light and then introduce the vaccine at that skin site. Recently, low-power, near-infrared (NIR) laser light has been shown to significantly enhancing vaccine responses and can be used as vaccine adjuvant by others and us. This promising approach can result in better vaccine responses without the need for chemical adjuvants. Nonetheless, critical pieces of information to advance this technology to the point of advanced pre-clinical development are still largely missing. The objectives of this project are 1) Design and construct a near-infrared laser device appropriate for clinical use with intradermal vaccines. 2) Show in an animal model that such a device can enhance an intradermal influenza vaccine. 3) Elucidate the mode of action of the laser-based vaccine adjuvant using established in vitro system to evaluate innate immune signaling. Laser-based adjuvanting approaches have not been moved beyond academic studies to date. These studies will be advised by Dr. Kashiwagi and Dr. Kimizuka at the Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, Massachusetts General Hospital and Dr. Hasegawa and Dr. Ishii at the School of Medicine, Keio University. This project will open the door for greater testing of the laser-based adjuvant with a variety of vaccines, and will form the foundation for development of clinical-ready devices.

Project Member

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