Novel Approach For An Evolution-Proof Influenza Vaccine

Presenter background: Lauren is a 2nd year PhD candidate at Amsterdam UMC and CIMCure, Netherlands. She completed her BSc in Human Life Sciences, Honors in Biochemistry and Masters in Systems Biology at the Stellenbosch University in South Africa. She briefly went to work for a digital marketing agency based in the UK before she rediscovered her passion for science. She got interested in virology mainly due to the increased prevalence of influenza and HIV in South Africa and she is determined to make a scientific contribution to lower income societies. She relocated to Amsterdam to pursue her PhD under Prof Arjan Griffioen supervision, she credits her supervisor for encouraging her to attend her first international conference (9th ESWI 2023 conference) to show parts of her PhD work. Her experience as an early career scientist so far, during the ESWI 2023 conference, is sharing celebrations with her peers, gaining confidence and building her network. Outside of her PhD she enjoys hiking, walks on the beach and travelling. 

The development of influenza vaccines remains challenging due to the virus genetic shift. The development of Immune-Boost (iBoost) technology from her research group has allowed her to design an evolution-proof conjugate vaccine candidate for influenza viruses. Including Hemagglutinin (HA) and Neuraminidase (NA) epitopes elicited broad immune responses since these conserved antigens are accessible for neutralising antibodies. Her findings show that in a pre-clinical setting there was an increase of vaccine-induced antibody responses against H1 and N1. Future work on this preclinical phase study will involve computational biology. The development of vaccine strategies to fight influenza and other viral infections is important. The incorporation of iBoost technology vaccine achieved by Lauren shows impactful yet economically efficient vaccine development while also profiles vaccine safety and immunogenicity.