Laboratory of Polypeptide Drugs and Delivery

Congratulations to PhD student Zhenghui Xu on the submission of your thesis and the publication of your 1st research article in the prestigious Journal of Controlled Release.

His publication describes a simple, efficient Sortase A enzyme-mediated means to site-specifically conjugate Toll-like receptor 2 agonist lipopeptide adjuvants onto recombinant protein antigens.

This work generates highly defined, self-adjuvanting vaccines, and unlike the recombinant processes used for the production of other lipoprotein vaccines like Trumenba, it ensures that a single type of fatty acid is incorporated into the lipopeptide portion, rather than a heterogeneous mixture.

The paper demonstrates the use of this system for developing broadly protective vaccines against group A streptococcus (GAS), which is responsible for diseases ranging from a sore throat through to heart valve and kidney damage, and the flesh eating disease necrotising fasciitis.

Xu Z, Rivera-Hernandez T, Chatterjee O, Walker MJ, Moyle PM. Semisynthetic, self-adjuvanting vaccine development: Efficient, site-specific sortase A-mediated conjugation of Toll-like receptor 2 ligand FSL-1 to recombinant protein antigens under native conditions and application to a model group A streptococcal vaccine. J Control Release 2020;317:96-108

(https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2019.11.018)

Congratulations to PhD student Faheem Maqbool. His new publication on how supercritical carbon dioxide can be used to efficiently produce and load liposomes with drugs has been published online in Artificial Cells, Nanomedicine, and Biotechnology.

Maqbool F, Moyle PM, Tan MSA, Thurecht KJ, Falconer JR. Preparation of albendazole-loaded liposomes by supercritical carbon dioxide processing. Art Cells Nanomed Biotechnol 2018; in press

(https://doi.org/10.1080/21691401.2018.1536059)

Read our new article on “biotechnology approaches to produce potent, self-adjuvanting antigen-adjuvant fusion protein subunit vaccines” in Biotechnology Advances (IF 9.848).

DOI: 10.1016/j.biotechadv.2017.03.005