Antonius Oomens
Oklahoma State University, OK·Microbiology & Immunology
Respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is the leading viral cause of bronchiolitis and pneumonia in young children and is linked to more than 100,000 child deaths worldwide each year. A maternal vaccine given in pregnancy now protects newborns through antibodies passed from mother to infant, but that protection fades after roughly four to six months, not every pregnancy will include the vaccine, and disease burden stays high through ages four to five.
- Fields
Microbiology & Immunology
Medicine & Clinical Research
Biology
- Topics
respiratory syncytial virus
live-attenuated vaccine
single-cycle virus
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Jan 2028
What they work on
- Build live single-cycle RSV vaccines that produce abundant viral antigen but cannot spread cell to cell, and therefore cannot revert to virulence even when immunity is suboptimal.
- Raise the early type I interferon response to the vaccine by disabling the virus's interferon-antagonist functions and by inserting interferon-expressing genes, then test whether this prevents Th2-biased helper T-cell responses.
- Test safety and protection of prime-boost vaccination in a neonatal mouse model, including challenge with multiple RSV strains, for vaccines designed to focus responses on the fusion and attachment proteins.
- Determine whether intranasal delivery reduces inhibition by maternal antibodies, and compare priming at neonatal age with priming at one to four and four to six months.
More about the research
A vaccine that directly immunizes infants is therefore still needed. This project develops and tests one for newborns under 28 days old.
Why it matters
Infants remain vulnerable to severe RSV after maternal antibodies wane, and a safe vaccine given directly to babies has been elusive, in part because of the inflammatory reactions seen in an earlier trial. A single-cycle, interferon-boosted nasal vaccine that avoids Th2-skewed responses could protect infants and young children against multiple RSV strains, either on its own or alongside maternal immunization.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Jennifer Melinda Bomberger
Dartmouth College, NH·Microbiology & Immunology
Test whether TsiT, a T6SS immunity protein that resembles LysR-type gene regulators, acts as a transcriptional regulator that controls Pseudomonas aeruginosa biofilm formation.
Weina Sun
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, NY·Microbiology & Immunology
Map when and where antigen-specific IgA- and IgG-secreting B cells arise in mucosa-associated lymphoid tissues of mice after intramuscular mRNA-LNP vaccination and after intranasal Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccination encoding Beta-variant spike.
Young-Mi Go Kang
Emory University, GA·Pharmacology
Determine whether cadmium enhances RSV-induced protein S-palmitoylation, the attachment of fatty acids to proteins, by changing the activity of zDHHC11 and acyl protein thioesterase in mice and lung cells.
The school
Oklahoma State University: 15 labs on PI Pages, $254M a year on research, 238 research doctorates a year.
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