Department of Physics, Chemistry and Biology (IFM)

     Efficient vaccines have and may be used to eradicate prominent viral pathogens (such as variola, polio, measles or perhaps influenza. Other pathogens, such as HIV (AIDS) or hepatitis C virus have so far been extremely difficult to develop vaccines against.

     There is a great need to develop novel and improved vaccines against several airway pathogens such as influenza A/B, adenoviruses, rhinovirus, parainfluenza virus and RSV (respiratory syncytical virus).

     The issue is often to understand how to decide which vaccine candidates or vaccination modes are the most efficient in providing protective immunity. For instance, among viral vaccines several lack potent adjuvant to enhance their efficacies. Other problems may be the lack of accurate immune assays to determine if a vaccine induced immunity is protective.

     Today the most frequently used adjuvants are mineral-oil based (i.e. aluminium phosphate or aluminium hydroxide) and they are only allowed for parenteral administration with syringe.

     So, there is a great need to develop new adjuvants and delivery strategies against for instance pandemic influenza.

   New adjuvants, new vaccine candidates and better methods to measure protective immune responses are urgently needed.

     The definition on vaccine induced protective immunity s often based on immunobiological assays in vitro. In the influenza A vaccine field, this is determined by the use of the hemagluttination inhibition assay (HAI), the gold standard for determining influenza neutralization activity of antibodies. The HAI is not a true virus neutralization assay and is sometimes regarded as a quite poor analysis method. It would thus be very valuable to find better options, such as the use of a functional cell-virus-culture based neutralization assay in vitro. The aim of this study would be to evaluate, compare and discuss the benefits and problems with each if the two immune protection evaluation assays.