Identification and Characterization of Adjuvant Controlled Correlates of Immune Protection

Influenza is one of the most common illnesses afflicting mankind, with 5% of adults and 20% of children suffering influenza infections with symptoms each year. While conventional commercial influenza vaccines are capable of protecting up to 90 percent of the adult population, these same vaccines don't work very well in the very old or the very young. We have recently investigated early immune responses to certain vaccines and identified several adjuvant-specific signalling pathways that are linked with increased immune responses in ferrets. Here we propose to test the importance of adjuvant specific signalling pathways in enhancing influenza specific vaccine responses and protection. These catalyst studies will be extended to young and aged ferrets to determine if poor adjuvant activity contributes to poor immune responses in these high risk animals.