Winnie Lin
Pronouns: She/her/hers
Research Mentor(s): Anna Schwendeman
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Medicinal Chemistry / Pharmacy
Program: UROPF
Session: Session 1 (9:00am – 9:50am)
Authors:
Abstract
There are a plethora of techniques in which the content of a vaccine can be delivered into the target cells of a human body. Even so, the more important component of vaccinations consist of how the vaccine will behave inside the human body. One way to evaluate the effectiveness of a vaccine is to observe and evaluate the stability of LNP(lipid nanoparticles) in human serum. This way we are able to conduct an in vivo study without injecting the vaccine into a living organism. In this study, LNP specifically refers to the Pfizer vaccine, which is formed by mRNA, DSPC, cholesterol and two lipids ALC-0315 and ALC-0159. This experiment was carried out by first incubating the vaccine formulation with human serum at different time lengths. They were then separated by gel permeation chromatography via molecular sieve. Fractions of interest in each sample were collected for an insight into the location and the level of each component where the quantification of mRNA was carried out by using RiboGreen RNA Assay Kit, and cholesterol by using Cholesterol Ester Assay kit. Additionally, other components were identified by UPLC/MS processing. Interestingly, we noticed some minor shifting and changes of concentrations of vaccine components at different time stamps, implying interaction between vaccine and human serum components such as lipoproteins and proteins which presents the mechanism of the vaccine in vivo further. As the study progresses, the individual behaviors between vaccine and human serum will be analyzed. This data collected is important for the advancement of Covid-19 vaccines in the market to better understand the behavior of the vaccine in vivo, which will guide the development for a more precise and efficient vaccine.
