Educational Article
High-content imaging in vaccine adjuvant development with the Gates Foundation
November 10, 2022
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7 minute read
Spring’s technology is not limited to drug discovery and has already been used in vaccine development. As part of a Gates Foundation grant, Spring characterized existing vaccine adjuvants and with the goal of building AI-powered in vitro models of adjuvant behavior to accelerate adjuvant program decision-making.
These proprietary phenotypic models of adjuvant immune activation can now be used to develop novel vaccine adjuvants.
Spring’s Engine was used to screen many adjuvants for complex phenotypic signatures in human PBMCs, and Spring showed its ability to accurately predict which adjuvant PBMCs have been exposed to with 100% accuracy across all blinded samples.
This AI-based adjuvant phenotyping model can be used decipher subtle immune activation characteristics of unknown adjuvants of interest in order to make informed adjuvant program choices, with nuanced understanding of their biology, using only an in vitro screen.
We look forward to sharing more about this collaboration with the Gates Foundation soon.