Ten years ago, School of Medicine Professor Linc Sonenshein received a phone call from the then Chief of the Division of Geographic Medicine, Dr. Gerald Keusch.
Keusch had just returned from a meeting sponsored by the World Health Organization about the vaccination of children and was excited to speak with his colleague about one of the biggest problems facing vaccinations in the developing world: the lack of refrigeration.
The phone call led to a research collaboration on one of the world's most pressing scientific problems. Together the two began discussing the creation of a vaccine in spore format, which would allow it to be stored at room temperature.
After two years of work, the project had to be dropped.
"[We] had to give up because of lack of funding for such an unorthodox idea," Sonenshein said.
But the research was only halted temporarily. This past June, Sonenshein's project proposal was one of 43 selected out of 1,600 for funding by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation as part of an initiative called Grand Challenges in Global Health.
The $5 million grant means that Sonenshein and a team of scientists are now trying to introduce the genes that code antibody-making proteins into bacterial spores, which Sonenshein called "the most durable biological entities known."
The bacteria with which the team is working is Bacillus subtilis, a bacteria found in dirt. The genetically modified bacteria, now containing DNA that will produce antibody-making proteins in the human body, can be stored in spore form.
"The dried spores can be shipped all over the world in packets and kept on the shelf almost infinitely," Sonenshein said.
Sonenshein has so far worked on vaccines for diptheria and tetanus and is planning to add whooping cough and rotavirus to the list.
If the project is successful, "when someone needs to be vaccinated, a packet of spores can be opened, the spores poured into a glass of water or other liquid and then drunk down," Sonenshein said.
Sonenshein is working on the project with Keusch, who is now the Associate Provost for Public Health at Boston University, Saul Tzipori from the Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Medicine colleague Miguel Stadecker.
The grant is given by the Gates Foundation and administered by the Foundation for the National Institutes of Health. According to Sonenshein, "both foundations have stipulated that the fruits of this research must be made freely available for use in the developing world."
