MagaVax vaccine for Ebola

Ebola virus EBOV is a dreaded virus that periodically emerges from its animal reservoir to cause serious and deadly epidemics A recently developed replicating viral vaccine rVSV ZEBOV was successfully used as a post exposure vaccine for persons at high risk following exposure However this antibody inducing vaccine has caused fever and arthritis in many healthy subjects which makes unsuitable to give as a prophylactic vaccine Instead work continues on developing a vaccine that generates protective CD T cell responses against the Ebola glycoprotein GP protein Unfortunately the currently developed Adenoviral based and MVA based vaccines elicit a suboptimal CD T cell response in humans Consequently this project will develop a new vaccine based on combining GP antigen with a highly effective multi trimer form of CD ligand CD L or CD The vaccine design is based on a fusion protein comprised of the body of surfactant protein D SPD as a multimerization scaffold SPD combined with GP and the extracellular domain of CD L SPD GP CD L This is referred to as a Multi Trimer Antigen Adjuvant Vaccine or MagaVax The Aims are to make the construct in an adenoviral vector test its effectiveness at eliciting anti GP CD T cells in mice in vivo and prepare a macaque version for eventual testing in monkeys When these studies are complete a MagaVax EBOV vaccine will be ready for further testing and development as defense against Ebola Ebola virus infection is a current threat that recently infected over people in West Africa and was then carried by exposed individuals into the United States This project will develop a strong preventative vaccine against Ebola that works by eliciting T cells to clear this virus from the body