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Pharmacy

2 Mitacs Globalink (GRI) research projects for Summer 2027.

1. Exploration of adjuvanted lipid nanoparticles for pulmonary delivery of subunit vaccines

Subunit vaccines that are based on recombinantly produced and highly purified antigens from pathogens represent one of the safest approaches to induce protective immunity at mucosal sites such as lungs. However, subunit vaccines are poorly immunogenic and require adjuvants. Adjuvants are compounds that used to maximize the potency of vaccines by enhancing antigen-specific immune responses. Components of adjuvants include pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs) that are agonists of pathogen recognition receptors (PRRs). Innate immune responses are activated when PRRs recognize PAMPs derived from invading pathogens. Most vaccine formulations contain adjuvants based on aluminum compounds and oil emulsions, which have some drawbacks. Moreover, these adjuvants are not suitable for mucosal delivery of vaccines. We aim to create novel safe and effective mucosal adjuvants that are based on nanoparticles loaded with PRR agonists. We hypothesize that incorporating agonists of PRRs in pulmonary biomimetic nanoparticles will allow us to generate novel adjuvants that can induce robust immune responses in the lungs. We will use microfluidics manufacturing to load PRR agonist in nanoparticles and will characterize their physicochemical properties. We will test the activation of dendritic cells and PRR reporter cells by the adjuvant formulations.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: Our current research work involves three complementary themes: (i) nanoparticle-based bioengineering strategies to enhance delivery and efficacy of vaccines and adjuvants (ii) delivery of nucleic acid-based vaccines and therapies (iii) non-invasive vaccine and drug delivery through the respiratory mucosa all focused on creating new therapies based on controlled modulation of the immune system. We investigate topics at the interface of immunology, pharmaceutical engineering, targeted drug delivery, and molecular imaging to address important health problems that are intractable via a unidisciplinary approach. Our goal is to develop and deliver novel therapeutics and prophylactics for the betterment of human health.

Student roles:
The student will be trained on the microfluidic manufacturing and characterization of PRR agonist loaded liposome-based adjuvants for subunit vaccines. The student will optimize the process parameters during microfluidic manufacturing of adjuvants and evaluate the in vitro activation of immune cells and PRR reporter cells.

Skills required:
1. Educational background in pharmacy, biochemistry, nanotechnology, or biomedical engineering.
2. Evidence of academic excellence.
3. Effective organizational, time management skills, and prioritization skills as well as effective verbal and written communication skills are required.
4. Motivation to perform laboratory-based research.

2. Lipid nanoparticles for the pulmonary delivery of messenger RNA

Messenger RNA formulated with lipid nanoparticles (mRNA-LNPs) is a disruptive vaccine technology that is poised to tackle challenging infectious diseases. mRNA vaccination induces robust humoral and cellular immunity in the circulation, but mRNA vaccines induce suboptimal mucosal immunity in the lungs. This is because not much is known about how to design mRNA vaccines optimal for induction of mucosal immunity upon inhalation. Our aim is to design mRNA-LNP vaccines for inducing mucosal immunity in the lungs. LNPs experience shear stress during aerosolization and therefore stability of LNPs is important for the development of inhalable mRNA-LNP vaccines. We hypothesize that by optimizing the LNP design space, we can improve the stability of LNPs to resist shear forces during aerosolization and can induce robust immune responses by stable inhalable mRNA-LNPs. We will optimize the formulation and process parameters during LNP synthesis by microfluidic manufacture and adjust LNP composition to improve formulation stability. We will test the physicochemical properties of modified LNPs and evaluate their stability upon aerosolization.

Research area, student roles & skills

Research area: Our current research work involves three complementary themes: (i) nanoparticle-based bioengineering strategies to enhance delivery and efficacy of vaccines and adjuvants (ii) delivery of nucleic acid-based vaccines and therapies (iii) non-invasive vaccine and drug delivery through the respiratory mucosa all focused on creating new therapies based on controlled modulation of the immune system. We investigate topics at the interface of immunology, pharmaceutical engineering, targeted drug delivery, and molecular imaging to address important health problems that are intractable via a unidisciplinary approach. Our goal is to develop and deliver novel therapeutics and prophylactics for the betterment of human health.

Student roles:
The student will be trained on the microfluidic manufacturing of nanoparticles for mRNA delivery and the characterization of mRNA-loaded nanoparticles. The student will optimize the process parameters during microfluidic manufacturing of nanoparticles and evaluate the in vitro expression of the mRNA-encoded antigen in the cells.

Skills required:
1. Educational background in pharmacy, biochemistry, nanotechnology, or biomedical engineering.
2. Evidence of academic excellence.
3. Effective organizational, time management skills, and prioritization skills as well as effective verbal and written communication skills are required.
4. Motivation to perform laboratory-based research.