Grant: Alliance Grants

The messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccines created during the COVID-19 pandemic revolutionized our ability to rapidly develop safe, effective vaccines. The approved Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines both consist of strands of mRNA encapsulated in a delivery system formed of lipid nanoparticles (LNPs). The LNPs protect the mRNA cargo from being broken down in the body and deliver it into cells, which then use the mRNA template to generate an effective immune response. Despite the early success of this exciting new technology, current challenges in designing the next generation of vaccines include improving uptake into cells, optimizing release of the mRNA cargo inside cells, and generating a more potent immune response from smaller doses that cause fewer side effects. The size, structure, and other physical properties of LNPs determine how effectively they can deliver their mRNA cargo to the target cells. It is therefore important to study how changing the LNP formula, as well as the mRNA itself, affects the structure and function of individual loaded LNPs. Precision Nanosystems Inc (PNI) is a Canadian biotech company that has developed the LNP delivery platform technology used by pharmaceutical companies in their development of mRNA vaccines and other medicines. The Leslie Lab at the University of British Columbia has developed a novel single-particle imaging technique that enables direct imaging of individual nanoparticles and molecules as they interact with each other in conditions that resemble those inside immune cells at various stages of vaccine delivery and mRNA release. This is the only method that allows simultaneous measurement of multiple parameters of the same single particles (e.g., size and cargo loading) to allow researchers to correlate LNP structure to vaccine performance. Our collaboration thus combines two made-in-Canada technologies to accelerate the development of vaccines and medicines to fight COVID-19 and other diseases.