Studies on cellular and humoral immunity elicited by influenza A virus infection and vaccination

Lower respiratory infections represent the fourth leading cause of death worldwide and the leading cause of death among transmittable diseases. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, Influenza A virus (IAV) infections in particular represented a serious public health threat, accounting for significant morbidity and mortality worldwide due to seasonal epidemics and periodic pandemics. Further, despite being an important countermeasure to combat IAV and being highly efficacious when matched to circulating IAVs, current preventative strategies of vaccination against IAV often provide incomplete protection due the continuous mutation of circulating strains of IAV resulting in mismatched protection between the vaccine strains and circulating strains of IAV. Therefore, prevention and control of IAV infection with vaccines is dependent on improving our understanding of the host immune response induced by vaccination and how various vaccine platforms can be used to broaden and induce additional components of the local and systemic immune response relative to those utilized with current IAV vaccines. To this end, my research has focused on the development of a universal IAV vaccine candidate, known as IAV-nanovax, capable of providing robust, long-term protection against multiple strains of IAV. Here, I report on findings related to IAV-nanovax including the immunity and protection afforded by various formulations of the vaccine against lethal IAV infection and delve into the specific cellular and antibody based immune responses induced following IAV-nanovax vaccination that may be responsible for its increased efficacy to traditional IAV vaccines.