In Arizona, the world’s first plant-based Zika vaccine that could be more potent, safer and cheaper to produce than any other efforts to date has been developed by Arizona State University researchers led by ASU Biodesign Institute scientist Qiang “Shawn” Chen. The vaccine is based on a Zika protein that plays a key role for the virus to infect people.
“All flaviviruses have the envelope protein on the outside part of the virus. It has three domains.The domain III has a unique stretch of DNA for the Zika virus, and we exploited this to generate a robust and protective immune response that is unique for Zika,” Chen said.
After developing enough material for the new vaccine candidate, Chen’s team performed immunization experiments in mice, which induced antibody and cellular immune responses that have been shown to confer 100 percent protection against multiple Zika virus strains in a mouse challenge.