Grant: Collaborative Health Research Projects (NSERC partnered)

Innovations in vaccine development greatly benefit public health, by pursuing new and improved biologics, and re-envisioning new delivery routes though changes in their formulation and manufacture. The proposed research will advance recent progress made by an interdisciplinary team of scientists in designing new thermally stable vaccine platforms targeted against tuberculosis and influenza infection, where the temperature sensitive biologics will be stabilized by encapsulation in suitable carriers, thereby removing the necessity for costly and often unavailable refrigeration equipment in their storage and transport. The proposed project brings together chemical engineering and biomedical expertise to understand and implement industrially relevant drying techniques that will produce thermostable dry powder vaccines retaining their immune-boosting potency as seen in their original liquid form, yet now can be stored at room temperature for 3 months without loss in activity whereas liquid losses in potency occur in less than 1 week. Spray-drying these vaccine powders under optimized conditions results in a product designed for delivery to the lung by inhalation, boosting their effectiveness against lung-borne infections like tuberculosis and influenza, while avoiding the complex logistics of re-constituting dried vaccines in liquid media prior to administration. The research will produce optimal examples of thermostable dry powder tuberculosis and influenza vaccines, relating their physical and biological properties to engineering principles on particle formation and particle aerodynamics in the human respiratory system. The new knowledge will be transferred to appropriate pharmaceutical experts for the benefit of Canada's public health.