Designing “Universal Vaccines”

An ongoing project in the lab is to design “Universal Vaccines,” using the principles of Integrated Organ Immunity1,2. In the aftermath of COVID-19, as the world awaits the next inevitable pandemic, there are intense efforts to develop vaccines that induce broad B cell and T cell immunity against priority pathogens, such as a universal vaccine against coronavirus or influenza. An aspirational goal is the ‘100 Days Mission’, espoused by CEPI, to deliver future pandemic-beating vaccines in just 100 days. However, recent experience indicates that even under warp-speed conditions, with all the money in the world, and all the collaboration of industry, government, and academia, it still took 326 days from the release of the genetic sequence of SARS-CoV-2 to the emergency use authorization of the first mRNA vaccine against COVID-19. Although this is a historically record-breaking time in the annals of vaccinology, it still falls short of the 100 Days Mission. Therefore, “Universal Vaccines” that stimulate broad, pathogen-agnostic immunity, for some weeks or months, against an unknown pathogen, could be deployed at the earliest stages of the next pandemic and serve as a stop-gap measure until pathogen-specific vaccines become available2. Our goal is to develop Universal Vaccines that harness the synergistic interplay of the innate and adaptive immune responses to stimulate Integrated Organ Immunity that protects against diverse pathogens.

References: (1) Nat Immunol. 2024 Jan;25(1):41-53. (2) Nat Rev Immunol. 2024 Feb;24(2):81-82.