Wondering why worry about Zika, Ebola, H1N1 - Let me reintroduce you to our forgotten friend, DARPA.
One of DARPA’s program called ADEPT: PROTECT (Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics: Prophylactic Options to Environmental and Contagious Threats) is aimed at “developing new platform technologies that could be safely and rapidly deployed to the U.S. population and military personnel to provide immediate protection in the event of an infectious outbreak or biological weapons attack”. One of the methods of delivery is called Electroporation in RNA Vaccines (1). *See COMMENTS for all the references.
DARPA’s ADEPT purpose is to overcome limitations of active immunization. DARPA seeks new methods of scalable passive immunization (***DID YOU ALL READ THAT – PASSIVE IMMUNIZATION, YES) intended to confer protection to a healthy adult for a period of time, suitable to a military mission requirement or in a public health setting, as an approach to firebreak a high-risk group against a highly transmissible disease (2).
In the Broad Agency Announcement Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics: Prophylactic Options to Environmental and Contagious Threats (ADEPT-PROTECT), (2), DARPA requests that “Constructs should have the ability to be ‘turned off’ to levels below detection, or be permanently removed from the host/host cell, either by the inherent nature of the material or by design.
How do they plan to do this?
ADEPT - CCM-V aims to develop new RNA-based platforms (DNA) for vaccine design and manufacture. RNA-based platforms are produced much more rapidly than current protein-based vaccines, and these platforms use the body to produce the proteins typically included in conventional vaccines.
This platform can decrease vaccine production time from years to weeks. The potential advantages of RNA-based vaccines include not only the ability to encode the antigen—the component of the infectious disease or toxin necessary to initiate a series of cellular steps resulting in lasting immunity—but also to enhance the robustness of the immune response. Synthetic biology techniques and encoded elements could control the individual’s immune response to the antigen, thereby ensuring that each individual develops an effective response to the vaccine.
(1) http://www.darpa.mil/…/autonomous-diagnostics-to-enable…
(2) (2) Broad Agency Announcement Autonomous Diagnostics to Enable Prevention and Therapeutics: Prophylactic Options to Environmental and Contagious Threats (ADEPT-PROTECT) DARPA-BAA-13-03 NOVEMBER 1, 2012, p. 7). https://www.fbo.gov/index?s=opportunity&mode=form…
(3) DNA and RNA-based vaccines: principles, progress and prospects
Wolfgang W. Leitner, Han Ying, and Nicholas P. Restifo*
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1986720/
(4) One of DARPA’s proposed method of delivery for RNA Vaccines–
Electroporation is a microbiology technique in which an electrical field is applied to cells in order to increase the permeability of the cell membrane, allowing chemicals, drugs, or DNA to be introduced into the cell.
To promote effective immunization, attempts are being made to deliver vaccines through carriers as they control the spatial and temporal presentation of antigens to immune system thus leading to their sustained release and targeting:
DNA VACCINE DELIVERY STRATEGIES
Physical methods
Techniques such as tattooing, gene gun, electroporation, ultrasound, and laser provide energy (electrical, ultrasonic, laser beam) that brings about a transient change in permeability of cell membrane thereby promoting the entry of immunogenic DNA into the cells. The cell permeability is restored on the removal of applied energy after a short time period.
CH Saroja, PK Lakshmi, and Shyamala Bhaskaran1
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3465129/
(5) Electroporation - DARPA
http://fusion.net/…/darpa-thinks-it-has-a-solution-to…/
(6) Research on these delivery techniques - Noninvasive delivery technologies: respiratory delivery of vaccines.
Abstract
“This paper reviews the developments in noninvasive methods of drug delivery, with a focus on the delivery of vaccines via the respiratory tract. Recent results indicate that the respiratory system, and the nasal mucosa in particular, provide a valuable target site for immunisation against respiratory and mucosal pathogens. Vaccine delivery via the nasal and pulmonary routes each present distinct sets of performance requirements. Current delivery systems in development for both routes are reviewed herein. The storage and respiratory delivery of drugs and vaccines in powder form has been shown to provide improved stability and extended retention time in the respiratory mucosa. These features, in addition to the noninvasive nature of respiratory delivery, can provide benefits to public health vaccination campaigns, facilitating mass vaccination without the high cost of maintaining cold-chain storage.”
-(“Cold chain” refers to the process used to maintain optimal conditions during the transport, storage, and handling of vaccines, starting at the manufacturer and ending with the administration of the vaccine to the client. The optimum temperature for refrigerated vaccines is between +2°C and +8°C.)
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16370942
(6) Needle-free vaccine delivery. Giudice EL1, Campbell JD. · 1Center for Vaccine Development, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 685 W. Baltimore Street, Room 480, Baltimore, MD 21201, USA. egiudice@peds.umaryland.edu
