Oral vaccine against hepatitis B will protect children from dangerous viruses

Washington DC: A team of researchers discovered that the oral administration of the vaccine against hepatitis B protects children from dangerous viruses and also provided a "recipe" called virologists to improve vaccine drops. The study was published in Scientific Reports.

Millions of people are infected with hepatitis B each year and especially young children. Due to the high cost and stable environmental conditions required for vaccine storage, many people in developing countries are not vaccinated against this dangerous virus.

"Getting rid of needles that sting in the arms of small children is a benefit in itself, it also eliminates the need to sterilize needles and possible side effects such as swelling and infections." And unlike the vaccine used Today, this type of vaccine costs will be reduced and the administration of the vaccine will be facilitated, "said Martin K. Rasmussen, one of the leading authors.

As such, researchers strive to produce a form of oral or powdered oral vaccine powder. Oral vaccines are cheaper and easier to administer than injections. However, the development of a sufficiently effective oral hepatitis B vaccine has so far eluded researchers.

"We used a technology commonly used in solid state physics to explore the behavior of the vaccine in a particular type of encapsulation." This allowed for crucial information that would otherwise not have been able to be obtained. With the knowledge of other disciplines, new possibilities can emerge, "said Heloisa Bordallo, one of the leading authors.

A major challenge in making an oral vaccine is to encapsulate it in a material that can withstand the harsh conditions of our digestive system, to protect the vaccine against its destruction before it reaches its destination in the body.

The partners of the research team in Brazil have long known that the silica-based material SBA-15 is well suited for the encapsulation of a vaccine against hepatitis B. However, they did not know exactly how the material was protecting the vaccine. They also did not know why their vaccine was not always fully effective.

This is where the team of physicists came on the scene. Through a special technique badociating X-ray and neutron imaging, researchers at the Niels Bohr Institute have been able to produce 3D images of the interior of SBA-15 silica.

This marked a crucial step in the use of this technique to develop pharmaceutical products. The images allow researchers to see how the vaccine behaves inside the silica, at the particle scale. Among other things, they found that the vaccine tended to clump into the silica, making it less effective.

"We now know what makes the vaccine less effective and how to optimize it.We know exactly how much vaccine should be inserted into the silica capsule so that it works better in the body and clinical trials can be better interpreted "Bordallo explained. .