Hands-off oral vaccine delivery system to immunize wildlife populations against high consequence diseases.

The overall goal of this research project is to develop an effective, economical, bait-based oral vaccine delivery system for immunizing wildlife populations against high consequence diseases. This system is based on FoodSource Lures patented Incortrix bait formulation that can be used to incorporate complex agents such as vaccines with minimal loss of biological activity when exposed to the environment for several weeks. Our system has a number of novel features that will allow it to be deployed quickly over large areas and that should provide long term immunity in wildlife populations and thus help protect nearby livestock from infection. The specific objective of Phase I of this SBIR proposal is to obtain initial proof of concept for our delivery system when applied to two distinct categories of oral vaccines: a) recombinant live virus; and b) targeted protein subunits in microsphere carriers. Our preliminary testing of the bait system for delivery of a recombinant live virus will test several variations of the Incortrix bait to identify one which is most palatable to bighorn sheep. The subunit vaccine protein will be encapsulated within microspheres that are designed to minimize degradation of the protein as it passes through the harsh conditions of the stomach. Our novel oral vaccine system should be adaptable for a wide variety of animal pathogens; we expect that it may ultimately be used as a general method for immunizing livestock against common infectious agents.