Immunome-Derived vaccines- Dr Timothy Messitt EpiVax World Vaccine Congress

Vaccine design: what’s next?

Last April Dr Timothy Messitt from EpiVax delivered a presentation about the next wave of vaccine design on immune-derived vaccines at the World Vaccine Congress Washington.

See below the key highlights of his presentation:

Immunome-derived are T cell epitope driven vaccines that were developed in order to improve safety (limited potential for autoimmunity) and immunogenicity. Would like to take this into biodefense portfolio.

The focus is on T cell epitopes being able to predict T cell epitopes (Class 1 and 2 MHC binding) using EpiMatrix. The process goes through the following phases:

1. T cell epitope identification:
■CLUSTIMERS (identifies epitope clusters); potent epitops are promiscuous
■CONSERVATRIX finds conserved 9mers to be able to protect against as many strains possible
■Removal of cross-reactive epitopes

2. Expressing epitopes, usually by DNA plasmids followed with peptide boost; optimized whole proteins or VLPs with iso-optimized proteins

3. In vivo evaluation by HLA binding assays

Current vaccines: Burk/Tuly/MP, HIV/TB, Smallpox (VennVax) and others

The company is focusing on an accelerated vaccine approach focusing on biodefense and is planning to integrate all technologies in a web-based toolkit, iVax (currently beta testing it).

Dr Timothy Messitt, Manager, Business Development, EpiVax

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