Internationally renowned for pioneering, multi-disciplinary research, the Thrombosis Research Institutes comprise two independent charitable foundations based in London, United Kingdom and Bangalore, India.

 

Atherosclerosis Vaccine (Atherovac®):

As current methods provide only partial protection against atherosclerosis, this important project is focused on developing a vaccine.

Sometimes referred to as ‘hardening of the arteries’, atherosclerosis causes blood flow to become obstructed and may lead to coronary heart disease (CHD) or stroke. Atherosclerosis is widely recognised as a chronic inflammatory disease that involves innate and adaptive immune responses.

Increasing evidence now suggests that some immune responses protect against its formation while other accelerate the disease. This important paradigm shift in understanding has opened up the prospect of developing a cost effective vaccine which protects against atherosclerosis thereby significantly reducing the global burden of cardiovascular disease.

In pursuit of this goal, staff at the Thrombosis Research Institute, are working on finding the right antigen on which to base an atherosclerosis vaccine. Developing a bi-functional antibody which stimulates both innate and adoptive immunity is seen as key.

Animal experiments show that vaccines have the potential of protecting against atherosclerosis by selectively activating protective immunity and by down-regulating disease-promoting immune responses and staff at the Thrombosis Research Institute have already made significant progress in developing a bi-functional antibody as a candidate for developing Atherovac®.

This has involved the following procedure:

  • Selection of the antigen chosen from several proteins and pathogens
  • Immune response studies of selected antigens including proteins and peptides
  • Engineering bifunctional antigens by introducing linger peptide antigens intoa dendoraspin scaffold
  • Delivery vehicles for recombinant DNA vaccine

Considerable attention is now being given to further develop these vaccines for human use and clinical testing.