Team:USTC CHINA/Project/Overview

From 2013.igem.org

Overview

In our world, billions of people are suffering from contagions while only parts of contagions can be effectively prevented by existing vaccines. The disadvantages of traditional vaccines, like being produced and purified with strict requirements on temperature, have limited their application, especially in developing countries.

Fig1. Difficult shipping in remote areas

This year, our project focused on a revolutionary vaccine delivery. We bring a fresh Medication into the world, which contains an in situ expression system, and our product is a biological transdermal vaccine patch called T-vaccine. We chose Bacillus subtilis as chassis to establish the band-aid secreting fresh vaccines. The new vaccine consists of four engineering B.subtilis, each of which carried a gene circuit independently.

Fig2. block-based design

With an excellent transdermal peptide TD1, three of the engineering B.subtilis could express a series of fusion proteins (the antigen and two kinds of adjuvants), which could penetrate the skin and work as traditional vaccine molecules. The fourth bacteria are our "reporter" ,which would notify users whether the band-aid works well and when the patch can be pasted . Moreover, we designed a reliable suicide system in B.subtilis to ensure biosafety.

Fig3. No Needle

T-vaccine can be stored from minus 20 to 60 Celsius, which grants its great advantage transportation and enables us to reach every remote corner of the world to help eliminate contagions from our world. It is also proved that transdermal vaccine is an effective method for a variety of pathogens such as: tuberculosis, anthrax, hepatitis B and so on. Additionally, we have created a world free from needles. Consider these advantages, T-vaccine is expected to set up a promising vaccine research and a new development orientation.