Research Activities
Vaccine
Despite considerable progress in vaccine research, infectious diseases remain one of the most complex and difficult challenges facing public health today. This is because of the emergence of new infectious diseases, the recurrence of old ones and the persistence of intractable diseases.
As infectious diseases emerge and recur, developing and designing novel vaccine approaches is critical. At PLSL, our goal is to develop new vaccines with improved delivery and administration.
Our platform technology, licensed from the National Research Council, Canada, uses archaeal lipids as a novel adjuvant and drug delivery system and generates a potent humoral and cell mediated immune response. This technology is being used to develop vaccines against infectious diseases and cancer
We have state-of-the-art Biosafety level-II (BSL-II) facilities for vaccine design and development in-house. Cabinets with 100% exhaust and attached virus burnout units are used for all vaccine development studies. Animals are housed in individually ventilated cages, and all animal and tissue culture studies are carried out in a class -100,000 room.
In-house capabilities include:
- Vaccine formulation preparation
- Immunophenotyping by flow cytometry
- T-lymphocyte proliferation assays
- Mitogen stimulation
- Antibody detection by ELISA and Western Blots
- Immunogenicity studies and detailed monitoring of vaccine-induced immune responses
- CD8+ cytotoxic T-lymphocytes (CTL) lysis measurement by 51Cr release assay