Technical, economic, and clinical challenges to the development of new biomaterials-based vaccines

Research into novel vaccine methods is becoming increasingly important for the potential treatment of widespread diseases such as cancer, HIV, and malaria. Members of the Irvine laboratory have developed a hydrogel and particle-based injectable vaccine with the potential to treat such diseases. The vaccine aims to elicit a tailored immune response to a particular type of disease so as to destroy infected or cells in the body and/or develop immunological memory for future protection against the disease. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the feasibility of getting such a biomaterials-based novel vaccination method to the market. Topics such as application potential, efficacy, modes of delivery, storage, patent ability, and costs for producing the vaccine are explored. Finally, a suggested business strategy is outlined, through which value can be successfully obtained from the novel vaccine.

Department dc:contributor.department

Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Dept. of Materials Science and Engineering.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2005

Author dc:creator

• Huffman, Kathleen Renee

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Darrell J. Irvine.

• Materials Science and Engineering.

Statement dc:rights

• M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission.

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/33623

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/33623