University of Galway researchers have developed a modular approach to vaccine synthesis, potentially enabling the groundbreaking production of a new cancer vaccine.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society, is a collaboration involving a number of laboratories in Ireland, Germany, Sweden, the Netherlands, Spain and the US. The research paper describes a novel approach and has implications for vaccine design.
The vaccine contains three different components which can be assembled like lego blocks. The first is a targeting component, a glycocluster, to selectively deliver and increase uptake of the vaccine into the relevant cells of the immune system. The second component is a T-helper epitope in order to to generate long-term immunity. The third component is a cancer T-antigen containing molecule (MUC-1 ), in order to stimulate the immune system to generate immunity against cancer associated antigens found on breast tumour cell surfaces.
The study was primarily carried out by Dr Adele Gabba while she was a PhD student at University of Galway, under the supervision of Professor Paul Murphy, and subsequently as a postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of Professor Pol Besenius at the Johannes Gutenburg University of Mainz, Germany.
During the PhD study, Adele obtained an EMBO travel award which enable travel to the laboratory of Professor Ulrika Westerlind at Umea University in Sweden where vaccine constructs used in the study were prepared. The research was performed in a collaboration with laboratories also in Amsterdam, Boston and in Spain.
Professor Paul Murphy, Established Professor of Chemistry at University of Galway and SFI Investigator said: “I am hugely in debt to all the collaborators for all their contributions, and especially grateful to Dr Adele Gabba, for the persistence she showed throughout, which was the key to the success of this research, spanning her PhD study and a subsequent period as a postdoctoral researcher in Mainz.
