# Synthesis and Evaluation of Carbohydrate Vaccine Adjuvants

> **NIH NIH R01** · WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY · 2022 · $649,238

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
 The success of vaccination requires the generation of a strong immune response to the
inoculated antigens in order to provide long-term protective immunity against many infectious
diseases. To achieve this goal often requires the addition of vaccine adjuvants, substances that
a substance that boosts the body’s immune response to the vaccine. However, there are only a
few human vaccine adjuvants with an extensive safety record and minimal toxicity approved for
clinical use. At presence, more studies are needed to identify novel adjuvants that not only
significantly enhance the immune response for a particular vaccine, but also must be minimally
toxic and maximally safe for clinical use. In efforts to discover novel vaccine adjuvants, an in
vivo screening of forty-seven saponins from medicinal plants for their immunostimulatory and
hemolytic activities has led to the discovery of new exciting vaccine adjuvants. Among forty-
seven saponins evaluated, soyasaponins have emerged as the most potent adjuvants. These
newly-discovered carbohydrates exhibited a significantly enhanced adjuvant activity with almost
negligible toxicity when directly compared to QS-21 which has emerged as a vaccine adjuvant in
numerous clinical trials. However, obtaining them from natural sources is a complicated process
of extraction and purification that result in the production of minute. As a result, isolation of
soyasaponins is economically unfeasible and unsustainable if sufficient quantities are required
for immunological studies and clinical applications. Since FDA has strict regulations regarding to
the purity and quality of adjuvants for use in human, a synthetic source must be developed for
soyasaponins to be utilized as clinically relevant adjuvants. The objective of this proposal will
address these challenges through the chemical synthesis for procuring sufficient quantities of
soyasaponins in pure form. This effort will deliver well-defined soyasaponins without batch-to-
batch variation and provide tools for studies of their roles as vaccine adjuvants and exploration
of structure-adjuvant potency profiles for the discovery of non-natural soyasaponin improved
adjuvants.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10538831
- **Project number:** 1R01AI169505-01A1
- **Recipient organization:** WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY
- **Principal Investigator:** Hien M Nguyen
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $649,238
- **Award type:** 1
- **Project period:** 2022-06-10 → 2027-05-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10538831

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10538831, Synthesis and Evaluation of Carbohydrate Vaccine Adjuvants (1R01AI169505-01A1). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-24 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10538831. Licensed CC0.

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