Unmet Need
With lung diseases, namely influenza and lung cancer, on the rise, pulmonary vaccination is a promising approach to elicit strong immunity to inhaled pathogens and lung cancer compared to systemic immunization strategies. In particular, inhaled DNA vaccination, a rapidly developing field, can potentially promote humoral and cellular immunity in prophylactic and therapeutic applications. DNA vaccines also have advantageous features compared to their traditional counterparts, including more efficient scale-up and superior stability, which facilitates faster global distribution. However, the mucus gel layer lining the lung airway hampers the efficient delivery of DNA to pulmonary dendritic cells, limiting the effectiveness of this approach. So far no DNA vaccination platform that has been tested clinically penetrates the mucus layer efficiently. Consequently novel inhaled DNA vaccination platforms that can better elicit immunity in the lungs is a promising approach to improve the prevention and treatment of pulmonary diseases.
Technology Overview
Johns Hopkins researchers have developed mucus-penetrating particles (MPP) that can facilitate more efficient penetration of gene vectors across the human airway mucus and elicit durable immunity. This delivery platform utilizes vectors that have shown widespread airway distribution, deep epithelium penetration, prolonged lung retention, robust transgene expression, and increased uptake by dendritic cells in the airway epithelium of mouse models. Importantly, MPP-mediated pulmonary DNA vaccination induced memory T-cell responses that indicative of long term immunity. When tested in vivo, MPP treatment enhance survival in an orthotopic mouse model of aggressive lung cancer.
Stage of Development
The inventors have demonstrated the proof-of-concept in vivo with a model target antigen. They are currently evaluating the platform with therapeutic antigens.
Publications
