Research Projects

One of the major concerns to achieve desirable immunity after influenza virus vaccination is the generation of strong T cell immune responses. Given the COVID-19 pandemic and continued circulation of SARS-CoV-2 viruses, it is imperative to mitigate the enhanced risk of respiratory infections imposed by influenza viruses. In the present research project, we propose a novel approach to enable robust and broad-spectrum T-cell mediated immune responses by targeted delivery of engineered exosomes to the antigen presenting dendritic cells. We aim to engineer exosomes to express anti-CRD-2(DEC-205) receptor over the exosome surface to enable specific delivery of highly conserved influenza virus NP or PB1 T-cell epitope(s) to the dendritic cells. By this, we intend to generate robust and broad-spectrum T-cell mediated immune responses. The proposed work will be evaluated under both in vitro (DC cell line) and in vivo (BALB/c mice) conditions. Since exosomes are natural biological nanovesicles, we expect to generate robust T cell immune responses against influenza viruses in cell line as well as in animal model without cellular toxicity or any other after-effect. Furthermore, we aim to engineer the exosomes to express the anti-DEC-205 antibody that will specifically bind and thus, deliver the antigenic cargo to the DC only to enable enhanced T-cell immune responses. The DEC-205 is an endocytic receptor that is extensively expressed in several human and murine leukocyte populations. Hence, DEC-205 offers variety of clinical applications. The proposed strategy may overcome the limitations of vaccine and may also serve as a treatment alternative. A similar approach may also have applications in cancer and other infectious diseases of major concern in India and other developing countries.