Can nanotechnology help develop a workable dengue virus vaccine?

Scientists at the UNC School of Medicine are working to develop a nanoparticle vaccine to protect against the four serotypes of dengue virus, which infects more than 350 million people across the globe each year. Aravinda de Silva, PhD, professor of microbiology and immunology, and a post-doctoral researcher Stefan Metz, PhD, recently published the latest on their vaccine development efforts in PLOS Neglected Tropical Diseases. The nanoparticle platform was produced with PRINT (Particle Replication in Non-wetting Templates) technology. Joseph DeSimone, PhD, the Chancellor’s Eminent Professor of Chemistry and a joint professor in the Department of Pharmacology at UNC, developed PRINT, which utilizes 3D printing as a nano-molding technique, in 2004. Rather than using a killed or attenuated virus to develop a vaccine for dengue, de Silva’s lab is focusing on “expressing the E protein and attaching it to nanoparticles to induce good immune responses,” Metz said. The nanoparticle vaccine platform can be safer to certain...