Team leader

Objectives of the team

To develop vaccines using effective epitopes

Description of research and development by the team

１．Establishment of methods for the purification and structural analysis of antigenic proteins

• Establishment of purification methods to obtain high-purity proteins suitable for the analysis of higher-order structures, exploration of antigenic regions, and selection of candidate epitope regions
• Prediction of and comprehensive search for epitope regions capable of eliciting effective immune responses against mutant viruses

２．Determination of novel epitope sequences for improved vaccine efficacy

• Preparation of amino acid mutants of the candidate epitope region and selection of vaccine antigen sequences
• Validation experiments using human specimens, and design/evaluation of epitope vaccines
• Exploration for and identification of peptides capable of inducing the production of broadly neutralizing antibodies that are effective against mutant strains, and design of universal vaccines

３．Development of novel vaccines based on the findings of this research

• Development of peptide- and mRNA-based universal vaccines targeting new infectious diseases using conserved epitopes

Tasks of the team

1. 1Establishing a methodology to rapidly narrow down candidate epitopes through combined use of cryo-electron microscopy, X-ray crystallography, HDX-MS, and docking simulation
2. 2Developing a vaccine design methodology applicable to various other viral infections by checking candidate epitopes elevated by vaccination against databases and structural analysis
3. 3Preparing to develop human resources capable of planning clinical trials and analyzing results for rapid transition to clinical trials