The aim is to develop vaccine candidates that could work against all genetic variants of the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae (Hi). These bacteria can cause pneumonia, ear infections, sinusitis, conjunctivitis and meningitis, and are a frequent reason for antibiotic prescriptions. Professor Jukka Corander has now received NOK 10 million from the Novo Nordisk Foundation for the project.
“We have been conducting long-term basic research in this field for almost ten years. This grant is highly significant, because we can now begin the preclinical path towards a candidate vaccine. It is also an inspiration for other projects,” says the professor, who is based at the Department of Biostatistics at the Institute of Basic Medical Sciences (IMB), UiO.
The award is good news for Philippe Collas, head of institute at IMB.
“Our talented researchers are making an important contribution in the battle against antibiotic resistance. We congratulate Jukka Corander and his team on this award,” says Collas.
Corander and his team will collaborate with a wide range of researchers
Every year, around 700 million people worldwide develop ear infections. A quarter of these are caused by the bacterium Haemophilus influenzae (Hi). The problem is that antibiotics are frequently used when people become ill. High levels of use lead to resistance, meaning that one or more types of antibiotic cease to work.
In a study published in Nature Microbiology last year, Corander and his team found that the genetic features of H. influenzae are largely the same from region to region, unlike for most other bacterial species that cause respiratory infections. This means there is a better basis for developing a universal vaccine to protect against all types of infection caused by H. influenzae. Read the article about the study.
This is the work that Corander and the research group are now beginning. The project is highly collaborative as it requires broad expertise in clinical microbiology, antibiotic resistance, genetics, proteins and vaccine development. The team already have generated pilot data indicating which proteins from the bacterium may be promising components of an effective vaccine.
Investigating all the core proteins of the species
In the new project, they will go beyond the existing pilot data by screening hundreds of the so called core proteins carried by all bacteria belonging to the species. This will help to identify those that are most readily recognised by the immune system. In practice this is done by measuring how strongly antibodies in human blood samples actually bind to these proteins.
“We will use advanced AI methods, including AlphaFold, to understand the function of proteins about which we currently know relatively little. We will then test different ways of formulating the vaccine and carry out immunological tests to identify the vaccine candidate that produces the best immune response,” Corander explains.
Finally, they aim to select the most promising vaccine candidate and prepare it for further testing in humans at a later clinical stage.