Drs. Steven Dow, Lyndah Chow and William Wheat and their team of researchers at CSU’s Laboratory for Immunotherapy in the TMI and Flint Animal Cancer Center are working to develop a nasal spray immunotherapy for boosting vaccine responses in the upper respiratory tract, where many viral and bacterial pathogens first enter the body. Their studies in rodent models (and in cats and cattle) have demonstrated that the nasal immunotherapy activates a key immune defense cell in the nasal passages. This local immune activation leads to significant boosting of pre-existing vaccine immunity, with significant increases in antibody responses. The impact of this work is that the nasal spray immunotherapy could be used to improve the effectiveness of vaccines administered months earlier, such as influenza or Covid 19 vaccines, without actually having to be re-vaccinated.
When asked about the progress of this project, Dow stated “We have demonstrated that the nasal immunotherapy activates key antigen presenting cells in the nasal cavity, and can stimulate B cells locally to produce more protective antibodies, which may serve as a way to boost vaccine responses without having to get vaccinated again.”
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