Vaccine Adjuvants and Delivery Systems

TOPICAL COLLECTIONS

Guest Editors

Yufei Xia

State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Dr. Yufei Xia is a young professor in the State Key Laboratory of Biochemical Engineering, Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Science. He received his PhD in biochemical engineering from the University of Chinese Academy of Science (2018). His research interest is concentrated on vaccine adjuvant and delivery systems. Dr. Xia has exploited the softness and lateral mobility of Pickering emulsion and heralded as vaccine adjuvants, which have achieved potent humoral and cellular immune responses in SARS-CoV-2, influenza, zoster, and cancer vaccines. His works in vaccine adjuvant have been published in top-rank journals, such as Nature Materials, Advanced Materials, ACS Nano, etc. During the years, he has received ISV (International Society for Vaccine) Awards (2017), Ray Wu Prize (2018), Special Prize of Chinese Academy of Sciences President (2019). Chemical Industry and Engineering Society of China (CIESC) Award in Fundamental Science (2020), etc., and selected in Youth Innovation Promotion Association of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (2020), Nova Program of Beijing Municipal Science & Technology Commission (2020), Young Talent Fund of Beijing society of Immunology (2021).

Haibo Li

National Engineering Research Center of Immunological Products, Department of Microbiology and Biochemical Pharmacy, College of Pharmacy, Third Military Medical University

Dr. Haibo Li is a professor in the National Engineering Research Center of Immunological Products, Department of Microbiology and Biochemical Pharmacy, Third Military Medical University (Army Medical University). He obtained his PhD in biological technology from Third Military Medical University in 2013. His current research activities focus on integrating chemical synthesis and immunology to discover novel mucosal vaccine adjuvants. He developed an original strategy to rationally design novel lipopeptides as mucosal adjuvants by mimicking the active sites of the bacterial lipoproteins. Dr. Li has published over 50 peer-reviewed papers and several books and book chapters. Now he is a council member of Chongqing Pharmacological Society.

Collection Overview

Currently, vaccines, including personalized cancer vaccines, are prepared by extracting only the antigenic components of the pathogens, such as purified proteins, polysaccharides, synthetic peptides, or nucleic acids. These subunits favored simpler structures, rapid development, and higher safety profile, but at the expense of immunogenicity. To address this, a vaccine adjuvant and delivery system were developed. To some extent, it is safe to say that milestones in vaccines were concentrated around adjuvant and delivery systems. From first tetanus and diphtheria toxoid vaccine (alum-adjuvanted) to the first mRNA vaccine (lipid nanoparticle delivered), how to rationally deliver vaccine components is increasingly important to boost the immune responses and reduce administration doses and frequency.

In most cases, these techniques were developed in chemistry or material labs, but applied by biological researchers. Because of its complexity and cross-disciplinary nature, it is difficult to replicate from lab to lab and to maximize vaccine immunogenicity. Under this circumstance, we set up this method collection, which may offer a multi-disciplinary platform for the researchers in chemistry, immunology, material engineering, and the vaccine industry to share and communicate the “know-how” and quality control on vaccine adjuvant and delivery systems, as well as the optimal formulations for the varied situations. We hope that this collection may shed light on the rational design and streamline the development of the advanced vaccine adjuvant and delivery systems.