Funding outcome

Viral infections are a significant problem for newborns and young children as their immune system is not yet fully developed and cannot always respond appropriately. One approach to decrease the frequency and severity of these infections would be to have a vaccine that we could give to all infants early in life. For some such diseases we have effective vaccines, but for others the efficacy of current vaccines is limited. In addition the vaccines we use today have various limitations. Many of these vaccines require an injection, while others are not very effective at targeting the immune response to the appropriate organ, in our case the nasal cavity and the lungs. There are vaccines that can be given directly into the nose, but in most cases these are vaccines with live viruses or bacteria and they are not safe for everyone. We have developed a new technique that we believe will be appropriate for vaccines against viruses that can be given into the nose directly. Our approach has no live organism, and requires no injections. In this application we describe the studies we are planning to do to make sure that this vaccine is effective and safe in young individuals, as we have shown it to be in older individuals. If these studies are successful we can then pursuit testing in humans and if safe in older adults also test it in children and newborns.