Controlled Release of Inactivated Chikungunya Virus Vaccine Candidate: A Single Vaccination Approach for Long-Term Immunity

Vaccines have prevented and, in some case eradicated, many diseases. Still, many die of infections than can be prevented by vaccines. One of the main cause of deaths and diseases is forgetfulness of following up on time for next dose of vaccine or avoidance of taking the second or third dose. For newly discovered viruses or reemerging viruses, vaccine approaches that do not require multiple doses are not available. Chikungunya virus is one such virus that has caused widespread outbreaks around the globe. In this study, a new unique way of generating safe vaccine for chikungunya virus will be combined with another intelligent platform to ensure that only one shot of vaccine is sufficient to provide long-term protection from the disease. Chikungunya virus will be killed using a novel method to preserve the virus structure. Killed chikungunya virus will then be put inside a system that has multiple layers, each layer degrades slowly and one by one when injected in animals. This system will be designed to allow release of killed chikungunya virus immediately after injection in animals and again after a predetermined time has passed. Animals will be tested for development of memory in the immune system to ensure that a single shot of vaccine can protect from future infection. This approach will eliminate requirement of multiple shots of vaccinates. If successful, similar approaches can be developed for making vaccines against other important diseases such as Zika and Ebola. This study addresses a Fiscal Year 2017 Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program topic 'Vaccine Development for Infectious Disease' and Area of Encouragement under 'Development of vaccines to prevent U.S. Service members from becoming ill from endemic disease exposure during operational deployments including arthropod-borne diseases such as chikungunya virus.'