Congratulations to Dr Catherine Tsai on her achievement at the Falling Walls Lab New Zealand event held by the Royal Society Te Apārangi on 11 September 2019 in Wellington.
She received 3rd place for her research attempting to break the wall of infectious diseases through improved vaccines. Catherine is an early career researcher in the field of molecular microbiology and infectious diseases at the School of Medical Sciences, the University of Auckland. Her project is to develop a novel strategy for vaccine delivery. Most vaccines today are injected so need to be administered by a skilled professional, contain what is known as an ‘adjuvant’ to increase the immune response, which can raise toxicity concerns, and must be maintained at a certain temperature during transport.
Catherine aims to overcome these limitations by modifying the surface of food grade bacteria to contain the ‘antigen’ to trigger immunity. The bacteria causes an immune response without needing an additional adjuvant and the vaccine could be taken orally or via a nasal spray. It could also be freeze dried and transported at ambient temperatures. Such a vaccine would be much better suited to worldwide use, thus helping to break the wall of infectious diseases by increasing vaccination rates.