# Interactive Omics of HepB Vaccine Response in Co-Infection with Parasites

> **NIH NIH U19** · DREXEL UNIVERSITY · 2021 · $231,559

## Abstract

Project Abstract 
Despite our growing tool kit of clinically approved vaccines that prevent millions of lives 
annually, vaccine effectiveness is not equivalent across the globe, with particularly low 
coverage rates in the developing world. Among the potential contributors to vaccine 
failures in the developing world, accessibility, cold chain breaks, and education have 
been implicated as structural barriers to vaccine effectiveness. However, emerging 
evidence both in humans and animal models point to a critical role of parasitic infections 
as immunological confounders of vaccine induced immunity. Specifically, parasites infect 
more than a third of the world and have evolved over millennia to co-exist with their 
hosts. To achieve co-existence, parasites have evolved immunosuppressive strategies 
that dramatically alter the host’s immune system. These alterations include enhanced 
anti-inflammatory cytokine expression profiles and skewed T-helper (Th) immunity that 
collectively have been implicated in impaired response to both de novo infections and 
vaccination. However, the impact of parasitic infections on altered antibody immunity has 
been more controversial, where parasitic infection has been linked to reduced overall 
antibody titers in some vaccines but not others. However, given the critical role of Th 
immunity in programming the humoral response, it is plausible that while parasitic 
infection may only alter the overall magnitude of the humoral immune response variably, 
that these immunologic changes may have a dramatic impact on shaping the quality of 
the humoral immune response. Thus under this project we aim to comprehensively 
dissect the impact of parasitic co-infection on altering and shaping both the state of the 
vaccine induced memory B cell response as well as the functional character of the 
vaccine induced antibodies.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10224805
- **Project number:** 5U19AI128910-05
- **Recipient organization:** DREXEL UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Elias K Haddad
- **Activity code:** U19 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $231,559
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2017-08-10 → 2023-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10224805

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10224805, Interactive Omics of HepB Vaccine Response in Co-Infection with Parasites (5U19AI128910-05). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10224805. Licensed CC0.

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