# Nanovaccine-Mediated Immune Protection Against Influenza Virus

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF IOWA · 2021 · $680,912

## Abstract

Influenza A virus (IAV) is a major cause of serious respiratory illness and has been responsible for significant
morbidity and mortality in humans worldwide. The virus leads to approximately 200,000 hospitalizations and up
to 36,000 deaths annually in the United States during non-pandemic years. Given the disease severity, the
associated economic costs and the recent appearance of novel IAV strains within the US, there has been a
renewed interest in developing novel and efficacious “universal” influenza vaccination strategies to combat this
significant global public health threat. Importantly recent studies have highlighted the fact that immunizations
that generate local (i.e. nasal mucosa and lung) tissue-resident memory T and B memory cells in addition to
systemic immunity offer the greatest protection against future IAV encounters. The currently approved IAV-
vaccines are designed to largely induce IAV-specific antibodies, and by their design, do not induce lung
resident memory T and B cells that occur during natural IAV infections. Thus our long-term goal is to develop a
protective vaccine against IAV that induces lung resident T and B cells without the toxicity that occurs with
natural infection. To this end we have recently developed a nanoparticle based IAV vaccine (IAV-nanovax) that
mimics, without the pathology associated with IAV infections, many of the key attributes thought to be
important for lung resident T and B cell induction and maintenance. Importantly this IAV nanoparticle vaccine,
breaks the cold chain, is needle free, and is biocompatible. This IAV-nanovax has shown promising efficacy in
protection against homologous and heterologous IAV infections and the ability to induce T cell and B cell
responses in the lungs in our preliminary studies. Therefore, this proposal will use the combined expertise of
the Co-PIs and Co-Investigators to determine if a nanoparticle-based approach will allow for the induction of
durable, IAV-specific, lung-resident T and B cell responses and therein provide robust protection against
homologous and heterologous IAV strains using the following Specific Aims: 1) Determine the vaccine
formulation that induces optimal immunity and protection against homologous and heterologous virus
challenges, 2) Determine the vaccine formulation that induces optimal protection against virus challenge in
outbred populations. At the end of the project, we will have extended our findings into translationally relevant
outbred populations, established protective immune correlates that can be used to assess the efficacy of future
vaccination strategies, and delivered a protective preclinical nanovaccine.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10172830
- **Project number:** 5R01AI127565-05
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF IOWA
- **Principal Investigator:** Kevin L Legge
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $680,912
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-06-01 → 2023-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10172830

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10172830, Nanovaccine-Mediated Immune Protection Against Influenza Virus (5R01AI127565-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-21 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10172830. Licensed CC0.

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