Location: Animal Disease Research
Project Number: 2090-32000-040-045-S
Project Type: Non-Assistance Cooperative Agreement
Start Date: Aug 11, 2023
End Date: Aug 10, 2028
Objective:
Babesia proteins are critically important for vaccine development to prevent disease manifestation and block parasite transmission via tick vectors. The objective of this research is to develop a novel approach for delivering proteins to the mammalian host that can improve vaccine efficacy.
Approach:
This project aims to explore the use of data driven methods to enhance the design process of nanoscale vaccines, leading to more effective immunization strategies. Nanoscale vaccines have emerged as a promising avenue in combating infectious diseases due to their ability to elicit specific immune responses. However, designing these vaccines requires a deep understanding of the complex interactions between antigens and the host’s immune system. We will explore data driven methods to analyze and interpret datasets related to the disease causing Babesia bovis, and also the data essential to optimizing nanostrutures for vaccination delivery.
In this first year we will explore the design space and data organization strategies optimized for various analysis algorithms. We will create small scale test computations that can be scaled to larger datasets. At this time, our thinking is centered around data semantic strategies, because such methods enable parsing of data containing complex interactions; however, the implementation of such approach will be non-trivial. In addition to our team’s work, we will engage in outreach to other scientists and engineers in the field to explore potential collaborations and teaming strategies.
