Projects

BAXERNA 2.0 will establish a new vaccine development pipeline based on dramatically improved immunopeptidomics screening and innovative mRNA vaccine formulation. We will use our powerful new pipeline to develop novel mRNA vaccines against three bacterial pathogens that can persist within phagocytic cells: Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), Mycobacterium ulcerans (MU), and Acinetobacter baumannii (AB). MTB and AB are clinically problematic bacteria with alarming levels of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), while MU is an important neglected tropical disease.

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Although vaccines are recognized as highly effective tools to mitigate AMR and tropical diseases, effective vaccine development for these (facultative) intracellular bacteria is held back by a lack of known antigens, and by current vaccine platforms struggling to elicit the required strong cellular immune responses. We will overcome both limitations here through two key innovations: (i) novel proteomics and proteomics informatics approaches for immunopeptidomics to allow highly sensitive discovery and prioritization of bacterial epitopes presented on infected cells; and (ii) novel mRNA vaccines to induce both humoral and cellular immune responses, with innovative adjuvants to strengthen adaptive immunity, and to modulate innate immunity. Vaccine production will be done according to GMP standards, and we will pursue novel, low-cost production methods to enable local production and much-needed improved vaccine stability.We will characterize innate and adaptive immune responses in detail in human cellular models and mouse infection models.

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In addition, top vaccine candidates for MTB will be evaluated in unique primate models, followed by testing of the lead candidate in a first-in-human Phase I clinical trial.Together, we will establish our novel vaccine development pipeline as a blueprint for world-leading, next-generation bacterial vaccine development.

This project, called EPIVINF, is a Horizon Europe - Health project, funded by the European Commission. EPIVINF is a 60-month project with a total budget of EUR 6.9 million and started on the 1st of September 2022. The budget allocated to Omniscope is EUR 1.5 million.

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The EPIVINF project aims to study the epigenetic regulation of host factors critical for immune control and neurological health during acute viral infections. HIV and SARS-CoV-2 will be studied due to their shared features and impact on millions of people. The project hypothesizes that understanding epigenetic profiles, immune responses, and epigenetic control mechanisms in these infections will provide insights into how different individuals react and how different infections share similar mechanisms.

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The project will use cutting-edge epigenetic analyses, immune monitoring tools, disease-relevant animal models, and samples from unique human vaccine trials to gain a deep understanding of viral infections' impact on the immune phenotype, potentially leading to novel therapeutic interventions. Patient follow-up will be extensive, identifying factors predisposing to different clinical symptoms and disease progression.

Patient survival after lung transplantation (LTx) for end-stage pulmonary disease is poor (5-year survival rate of 59%) due to ischemia reperfusion injury (IRI) and graft rejection. No therapies are available to prevent IRI, and current immunosuppression causes toxicity and morbidity. Novel strategies are required that can mask the graft from the recipient’s immune system The LifeLUNG initiative unites the critical building blocks available in Europe to advance towards a novel paradigm for LTx. Ex vivo lung perfusion (EVLP) is a clinically used platform to maintain active lung physiology outside the body, making pre-LTx organ engineering a reality. The project aims to advancing EVLP technology to enhance our understanding of transplant rejection through accessible models. By utilizing biobanks of lung biopsies from both clinical LTx cases and established animal models of IRI and rejection, LifeLUNG will apply advanced machine learning and AI-driven deep sequencing to identify key immune factors and gene targets. The latter will be targeted in LifeLUNG with gene therapeutic agents (GTAs) that can be delivered during EVLP to selectively modulate immune responses. Several delivery tools including adeno-associated viral vectors, virus-like particles and lipid nanoparticles, will be tailored to ensure precise and graft-specific gene modulation, enhancing the therapeutic potential for reducing IRI and preventing rejection. Also the efficient production strategies of these GTAs will be an integral part of LifeLUNG. In parallel, LifeLUNG will explore the economic and ethical paradigms of genetic modification of lung transplantation and reflect its implementation into the broader research and clinical framework. The interdisciplinary nature of LifeLUNG will support the training of 15 doctoral candidates across clinical, academic, and industrial sectors, fostering collaboration and the development of transferable skills to advance the research objectives.

Asthma and COPD are prevalent, chronic respiratory diseases, with high incidence and societal costs. Current treatment is based on a ’one-size-fits-all’ approach, that suppresses symptoms, but fails to achieve stable remission of disease. There is an urgent need to replace these generic treatments with precision medicine for asthma and COPD. This transition is hampered by the complexity of asthma and COPD on the one hand, and by the lack of an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to achieve progress towards precision medicine for these chronic respiratory disorders on the other hand. The complexity of asthma and COPD is caused by multiple molecular mechanisms that independently contribute to the pathogenesis of disease. Their activity varies over time, and between patients, leading to substantial heterogeneity of asthma and COPD: identical clinical phenotypes can be caused by dissimilar molecular and cellular mechanisms, and requiring different treatments.

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The vision of RESPIRE-EXCEL is to achieve the transition to precision medicine in asthma and COPD by cross-sectoral and multi-disciplinary collaboration in respiratory research, drug discovery and development. The success of this approach depends on respiratory scientists with the competence to combine expertise across disciplines, and the skills to collaborate with experts from industry, healthcare and academia. Therefore, the goal of RESPIRE-EXCEL is to enable the transition to precision medicine for asthma and COPD by training the next generation of translational and physician scientists with the skills, cross-sectoral competences andmultidisciplinary knowledge to identify the molecular mechanisms of asthma and COPD, develop improved prognostic and diagnostic biomarkers to detect their activity in individual patients, and support the development of novel treatments that target individual diseasemechanisms, aiming to achieve stable remission of disease in asthma and COPD through precision medicine.

This project, called SIGNATURE, is part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions Programme and the Horizon Europe program, the European Union's R&D&I plan. SIGNATURE is a 48-month project with a budget of EUR 2.6 Million, starting in 2023. Its network will train enterprising, innovative, and resilient doctoral students, capable of facing current and future challenges and turning knowledge and ideas into products and services for economic and social benefit.

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Autoimmune disorders are highlyImmune-mediated disorders and highly heterogeneous entities for which the mechanisms of disease progression and therapeutic responses are only recently beginning to be understood. The patterns of transcriptome are the reflection of distinct cell types that are involved in the development of the disease process.

The project is based on a unique ongoing platform of clinical groups across Europe and specialists in cell and molecular profiling, imaging analyses, single cell sequencing and analysis. It will have the availability to existing clinical studies and clinical trials, as well as prospective studies of which new data will be produced.

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Further a specialized training program will be developed where students will be able to visualize the overall work from design to analysis of the data, and will engage in the unique multi-disciplinariry of this platform.

While endemic to the tropics, flaviviruses like Zika, dengue, West Nile or yellow fever virus are re-emerging pathogens of global health concern. Climate change and urbanization have largely contributed to the dissemination of their mosquito vector and Europe has in recent years been regularly confronted with autochthonous cases. Few vaccines are licensed to prevent flavivirus disease, but the yellow fever 17D (YF17D) vaccine has a unique track record of efficiency and safety.Intriguingly, despite its success, how YF17D induces immunity remains poorly understood. The YELLOW4FLAVI consortium aims to fill the gaps in our understanding of the mechanism of action of this vaccine by linking the structure of the viral particle to the resulting host immune response, in order to learn about optimal vaccine design for flaviviruses in general. Since social acceptance of vaccines is critical for their success, we will also develop optimal communication methods. This will provide us with the tools to tailor vaccine design not only to achieve optimal immune protection, but also to facilitate actual implementation.

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We are molecular and structural virologists, cell biologists, immunologists, computational scientists, clinicians, and social scientists assembled in a tight collaborative network. To pursue our goal of obtaining a blueprint for determinants of long-lasting immunity for flavivirus vaccine candidates, we will use cutting-edge technologies like cryo-EM, super resolution microscopy, spatial transcriptomics, high-dimensional spectral flowcytometry, single-cell RNA sequencing, advanced cell engineering, small animal models, and clinical studies. In a unique manner, the consortium thereby follows a thread of events from the early response at the site of vaccine injection to the population perception of vaccination, harnessing an enhanced understanding of one of the most successful vaccines of mankind for the development of novel lines of defense against new and old threats.