Most vaccines, from measles to Covid-19, require a series of multiple shots before the recipient is considered fully vaccinated. To make that easier to achieve, MIT researchers have developed microparticles that can be tuned to deliver theiir payload at different time points, which could be used to create “self-boosting” vaccines.
In a new study, the researchers describe how these particles degrade over time, and how they can be tuned to release their contents at different time points. The study also offers insights into how the contents can be protected from losing their stability as they wait to be released.
Using these particles, which resemble tiny coffee cups sealed with a lid, researchers could design vaccines that would need to be given just once, and would then “self-boost” at a specified point in the future. The particles can remain under the skin until the vaccine is released and then break down, just like resorbable sutures.
This type of vaccine delivery could be particularly useful for administering childhood vaccinations in regions where people don’t have frequent access to medical care, the researchers say.
“This is a platform that can be broadly applicable to all types of vaccines, including recombinant protein-based vaccines, DNA-based vaccines, even RNA-based vaccines,” says Ana Jaklenec, a research scientist at MIT’s Koch Institute for Integrative Cancer Research. “Understanding the process of how the vaccines are released, which is what we described in this paper, has allowed us to work on formulations that address some of the instability that could be induced over time.”
This approach could also be used to deliver a range of other therapeutics, including cancer drugs, hormone therapy, and biologic drugs, the researchers say.
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