Award details

Studentship: Recombinant vaccines for African Horse Sickness based on baculovirus pseudotyping and transduction

Reference	BBS/E/I/00001792
Principal Investigator / Supervisor	Dr Javier Castillo-Olivares
Co-Investigators / Co-Supervisors	Professor Peter Mertens, Professor Peter Mertens
Institution	The Pirbright Institute
Department	The Pirbright Institute Department
Funding type	Research
Value (£)	15,669
Status	Completed
Type	Institute Project
Start date	01/01/2013
End date	31/12/2016
Duration	47 months

Abstract

Studentship The objective of this project is to determine whether protective immunity against AHSV can be achieved by baculovirus transduction and / or pseudotyping. These vaccination strategies will be based mainly on the protective antigen of AHSV, VP2, but other AHSV proteins will be explored as well. Both baculovirus approaches will be used separately or in combination. The recombinant vaccines will be tested in an appropriate mouse model for AHSV. The construction of recombinant baculoviruses that express VP2 or sub-domains of this protein (or any other protein of AHSV or any related orbivirus) in mammalian cells upon baculovirus transduction is entirely novel. The same applies for the generation of recombinant baculoviruses displaying VP2 derived peptides on the baculovirion surface. So far, the use of baculoviruses for orbiviruses has been limited to the standard expression of recombinant proteins in insect cells. The approaches to be used in this project are completely different. The student will explore the possibility of using these recombinant viruses (using transduction or pseudotyping or both) as novel vaccines. The student will have a wide scope for improving or modifying the expression of these antigens by deciding which domains of VP2 should be expressed or whether or not other AHSV proteins should be incorporated in the constructs. Furthermore, the student will analyse the immune responses that follow vaccination of mice with these recombinant constructs, by developing the immunological assays appropriate for these studies. Again, nobody has done this work before. Finally, testing whether a combination of both approaches (transduction and pseudotyping), which are believed to induce different effector mechanisms of immunity, is superior to either approach alone is a comparative study that has not been done with any other virus as far as we know.

Summary

unavailable

Committee	Not funded via Committee
Research Topics	Animal Health, Immunology, Microbiology
Research Priority	X – Research Priority information not available
Research Initiative	X - not in an Initiative
Funding Scheme	X – not Funded via a specific Funding Scheme

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