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Microfluidic technologies have a wide range of applications in the field of vaccine development. Creative Biolabs has organized a staff of excellent experts who is killed in microfluidic technology application and vaccine development. We support a series of top-quality microfluidic-based vaccine development services, including production of liposomal adjuvants, vaccine delivery, and evaluation of vaccine efficacy.

Application of Microfluidics in Vaccine Research

• Assessment of vaccine efficacy

Monitoring vaccine effectiveness is critical to demonstrate the impact of vaccines on health outcomes, optimize vaccine uptake, and stimulate the development of improved vaccines. Detection of neutralizing antibodies is one of the important events for the evaluation of vaccine efficacy. Although many immunoassays have been established to detect serological antibodies such as ELISA, they still have some limitations. With the development of microfluidic technologies, they have been considered as high-throughout and sensitive tools for rapid detection of serological antibodies and evaluation of the antiviral vaccine efficacy. Hartanto et al. (2020) reviewed the progress of microfluidic-based immunoassays for detection of serological anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies and pointed out that the microfluidic device combined with visual quantitative signals is a fast, robust, and sensitive method to detect anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies induced by SARS-CoV-2 vaccine. In a study, a digital microfluidic system was integrated into a compact and portable, field-deployable, point-of-care system, enabling it to rapidly detect a small volume of capillary blood for disease-specific antibodies with high sensitivity and specificity.

Fig. 1 Microfluidic glass chip. ^1,4

• Production of liposomal adjuvants

Microfluidic devices offer robust, continuous, and scale-independent production platforms for the production of nanoparticles and liposomes. In a study, authors developed a microfluidic device for scale-independent production of cationic liposomal adjuvants. The liposomal adjuvants prepared by the microfluidics exhibited analogous biodistribution, physicochemical properties, pharmacokinetic profiles, and immunological activity compared to those produced by traditional small batch-scale methods. In addition, the authors also developed biotinylated DDAB:TDB liposomes with a lymphatic targeting strategy using microfluidics. The biotin-coated DDAB:TDB liposomes enhanced targeting and retention of DDAB:TDB and antigen within the lymph nodes, however, did not improve the immune response, even may skew the responses to a more Th2 profile. In another study, authors found DOTAP nanoparticles prepared by a microfluidic system could induce stronger CD4+ and CD8+ T-cell responses than liposomal DOTAP. Particularly, the application of the microfluidic system helps to determine the optimal antigen doses to induce T cell responses by investigating the effect of the size of DOTAP nanoparticles, the preparation of buffer conditions, and the physical and chemical interaction with vaccine antigens.

Fig. 2 Microfluidic nanoparticle vaccine generation. ^2,4

• Production of cell-based vaccines

Microfluidic squeezing provides a potential tool for intracellular antigen loading in polyclonal B-cells as cellular vaccines. In the system, many parallel microscale channels are used to enable single cell to pass through narrow constrictions in high throughput. This “cell squeezing” process enables intracellular delivery of whole proteins from the surrounding medium into resting or activated B-cells. In vivo and in vitro assays showed the squeezed B-cells loaded with antigens could prime and expand antigen-specific CD8+T-cells and promote the release of effector cytokines.

Fig. 3 Microfluidic cell squeezing provides a robust, scalable method for macromolecule delivery to B-cells. ^2,4

Services at Creative Biolabs

Creative Biolabs is a world-leading service provider who is devoted to offering the best end-to-end microfluidic-based solutions to accelerate vaccine development. Our services include but not limited to:

• Production of liposomal adjuvants
• Assessment of vaccine efficacy
• Vaccine delivery
• Cell-based vaccine development

We are committed to making use of robust properties of microfluidics to support and accelerate vaccine development. If you want to know more about our microfluidic-based vaccine development services, please directly contact us or send us an e-mail with specific requests.

References

1. Wlodarczyk, Hand, et al. " Maskless, rapid manufacturing of glass microfluidic devices using a picosecond pulsed laser." Nature Portfolio 9.1 (2019): 20215.
2. Roces, Lou, et al. " Manufacturing Considerations for the Development of Lipid Nanoparticles Using Microfluidics." Pharmaceutics 12.11 (2020): 1095.
3. Szeto, Egeren, et al. "Microfluidic squeezing for intracellular antigen loading in polyclonal B-cells as cellular vaccines." Scientific Reports 5 (2015): 10276.
4. under Open Access license CC BY 4.0, without modification.

For Research Use Only. Not For Clinical Use.