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National R&D

CyanoVaccine

Cyanobacterial outer membrane vesicles as novel platforms for Vaccine technology

Investigador principal

imgs_l8fgy_ref.claudia_serra1-1.jpg
Group Leader

Cláudia R. Serra é doutorada em Biologia pelo ITQB-NOVA, onde aplicou ferramentas de genética microbiana e biologia molecular na análise funcional de genomas bacterianos, tendo identificado e caracterizado genes relevantes de isolados gastrointestinais com potencial biotecnológico. Atualmente, é investigadora pós-doutorada no CIIMAR, dedicada à caracterização de comunidades microbianas gastrointestinais de espécies de peixes com importância económica e ao desenvolvimento de novos probióticos para aplicação em aquacultura. Cláudia conta com mais de 10 anos de experiência prática em laboratório, em contexto académico, mantendo uma forte ligação às indústrias farmacêutica e de alimentação animal.

EQUIPAS DE INVESTIGAÇÃO:
Microbiologia e Biotecnologia em Aquacultura

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Infectious diseases are a major constraint to the sustainable development of Aquaculture, representing economic losses of more than 10 billion USD on a global scale. The massive use of antibiotics to control fish infections has resulted in the development of resistant strains, which have rendered antibiotic treatments ineffective. Fish vaccination is a promising strategy to avoid disease outbreaks, and although already used routinely in highly produced fish species such as Atlantic salmon, their success and disease coverage is still rather limited.

In CyanoVaccine, we propose to implement outer membrane vesicles (OMV) as novel platforms in vaccine technology. The goal will be to explore OMV derived from non-pathogenic bacteria (cyanobacteria) as an antigen delivery vehicle to immunize European seabass (Dicentrarchus labrax), a marine fish economically important in Mediterranean aquaculture, against the opportunistic pathogen Mycobacterium marinum that causes mycobacteriosis, for which no vaccine or satisfactory treatment is available. CyanoVaccine will customize cyanobacterial OMV by packaging them with selected, heterologous M. marinum antigens. Engineered cyanobacterial OMV will then be administered to European seabass, stimulating specific adaptive immune responses against M. marinum antigens.
The successful implementation of CyanoVaccine will bring a strong impact on reducing fish susceptibility to diseases, decreasing fish mortality, and ultimately minimizing the constraints to the development of the sector imposed by disease outbreaks. The success achieved with this new technological approach on European seabass is expected to be easily translated to other aquaculture species. Furthermore, CyanoVaccine also holds the prospect of gaining fundamental knowledge regarding bacterial OMV structural components and biogenesis, recombinant protein expression and targeting, and physiological aspects of comparative fish immunobiology.

 

Equipas de investigação
Microbiologia e Biotecnologia em Aquacultura
Saúde de Animais Aquáticos
Instituição líder
IBMC
Programa
Portugal 2020
Financiamento
Outros projectos