Phase II Amount
$1,000,000
The broader impact/commercial potential of this Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will address the unmet need for more effective vaccines that can be rapidly deployed to decrease the lag time between pathogen emergence and vaccine development, minimizing socioeconomic effects such as those seen in the COVID-19 pandemic. This new vaccine technology has the potential to drastically improve the lives of US citizens during future outbreaks of new pathogens. Further, this new technology has the potential to have positive impacts by providing high value US products for the whole world and generating US jobs both in research fields and manufacturing of biotechnology products. Successful completion of this STTR phase II project will position the company with a technology that has potential multiple partnership opportunities including biotechnology and pharmaceutical businesses developing antigens for vaccines against SARS-CoV-2. By developing this new vaccine platform technology, the company will be able to gain access to a significant segment of the global vaccine market estimated at $61 billion in 2021 and projected to grow to $125 billion by 2028. This Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) Phase II project will enable the company to pursue the development of a new vaccine platform with robust and long-lasting vaccination responses against emergent pathogens. Although effective COVID-19 vaccines are now available to fight the global pandemic that started in 2019, they are facing significant limitations including diminished efficacy against new spreading variants, requirements for multiple doses, and challenging distribution pathways due to cold chain issues. The research objectives are to determine the optimal dose of the vaccine in a murine immunization model, understand the durability of its immune response, assess the vaccine's protective immunity against different SARS-CoV-2 variants, evaluate the vaccine shelf-life stability and develop a regulatory plan. Based on the successful preliminary data, it is anticipated that the new product will generate protective immunity against multiple variants of SARS-CoV-2 by providing a long-lasting immune response that will result in longer-lasting protection against infection when compared to current vaccines. Furthermore, the shelf-life and storage conditions of the new vaccine platform are anticipated to facilitate distribution and stockpiling, as no drastic cold chain logistics are expected.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
