Most currently used conventional influenza vaccines are based on 1940s technology. Advances in immunogen design and vaccine delivery emerging over the last decade open novel opportunities for improving influenza vaccines that are previously inaccessible. These next-generation vaccine design tools are particularly promising in their potential to provide solutions to challenging targets for which conventional approaches have proven ineffective—for example, a universal influenza vaccine. Among the new vaccine technologies, nanoparticle-based vaccines have unique properties that are highly designable and programable. I will discuss our efforts on the development of next-generation nanoparticle-based influenza vaccines to elicit broad and potent protective immunity to influenza virus. A few of such designed nanoparticle-based influenza vaccine candidates are currently evaluated in human clinical trials.

Learning Objectives:

1. Nanoparticle-based immunogen design to elicit broad and potent protective immunity to influenza virus

2. How immunofocusing to the viral sites of vulnerability can be achieved through immunogen design