Fall 2014 Spring 2015 Rotation Students

Stephanie Ha

Chlamydia trachomatis is the leading bacterial sexually transmitted infection in the world. A large part of why infections are so prevalent is due to the fact that many infections are asymptomatic, and therefore, not treated. Untreated infections can cause serious complications such as pelvic inflammatory disease (PID) and infertility in women. Increased transmission also results from individuals unaware of their infections. Thus, prophylactic vaccines may decrease infection and transmission rates of C. trachomatis. Halobacterial gas vesicles have been explored for their potential as a multisubunit chlamydial antigen delivery and display platform. Gas vesicle nanoparticles are safe, stable, cheap to manufacture and purify and shows great promise in their natural adjuvanting properties. There is also the potential that they could be administered as a food vaccine.

Previous work has indicated that immunoinformatics may be a useful tool to more effectively select antigens that strongly stimulate B and T cell responses, which are required to clear chlamydial infections. Currently, I am using this an immunoinformatics approach to select antigens of vaccine interest and exploring a new plasmid system that would simplify the process of bioengineering these gas vesicles.

 Emily Melzer