Noroviruses (HuNV) are the major cause of non-bacterial gastroenteritis outbreaks. The rapid propagation of the virus from person to person, the debilitating effects of “stomach flu”, the virus stability, and its resistance to common disinfectants have led to its classification as a Category B biodefense agent. Unfortunately, the lack of tissue culture system and small animal model has hampered the development of a HuNV vaccine. HuNV can be considered as a representative case of non-cultivable RNA virus. Solutions to the challenge of developing a HuNV vaccine could be applied to other viruses. We are trying to solve this challenge by using tools and methods from synthetic biology.

Live vaccines rather than inactivated ones or individual proteins have provided the most effective protections against viral infection. Live vaccines currently on the market are produced by cultivating attenuated forms of the virus. Unfortunately this traditional approach is not available for viruses like HuNV that cannot be cultivated. One way to overcome the limitations of traditional vaccines is to use vaccine vectors, innocuous viruses that have been engineered to safely carry antigen from another virus. Vectored vaccines are potentially safer and easier to produce than traditional vaccines.

In collaboration with Dr Lijuan Yuan (Virginia Maryland College of Veterinary Medicine), we are using a model-driven approach to optimize various vaccine vector using the HuNV as a proof-of-concept project to evaluate the potential benefits of our approach.